


The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep

by Zatnikatel



Series: The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-02
Updated: 2009-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 61,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zatnikatel/pseuds/Zatnikatel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missy Bender was three things. She was obsessive. She was insane. And she was in love – with a tall, beautiful stranger who looked real purty when he was hurting. But unfortunately for Dean Winchester, one thing she wasn't was still locked in the closet…</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep

**Author's Note:**

> **Rating**  R (for violence)   
>  **Warnings**  References to child prostitution; allusions to noncon   
>    
>   
> 

**1\. And They Call It Puppy Love**

Had Missy Bender ever set foot in Hibbing's one middle school, she would have learned a couple or three words that described her to a T.

The first of those words was industrious, but because Missy hadn't ever set foot in Hibbing's one middle school she wouldn't have had a clue what that word meant.

Sam Winchester would have known that this meant assiduous, diligent – because he'd been that way himself pretty much all through his life and certainly latterly, applying himself to his law books very industriously in order to make sure his full ride carried him all the way to the station stop he'd set his heart on all those years ago, watching  _LA Law_  reruns while his 14-year-old brother and/or surrogate father applied himself – pretty industriously – to cleaning the guns and honing the blades of their impressive collection of Knives For Every Conceivable Occasion.

In fact, even at ten years of age, Sam knew what industrious meant – and he had the personification of that word close by at all times as his brother diligently broke down, oiled, reassembled, loaded, and then carefully packed the guns away in preparation for that night's fugly, while their dad did God knows what God knows where. And even now, at twenty-six, Dean was still diligence personified as he lived and breathed  _Sam_ … watch after Sam, guard Sam, protect Sam, take care of Sam, throw himself in front of a bullet for Sam, sacrifice all for Sam.

The second word that had Missy sprinkled all over it was capable, though she'd never heard that word spoken by any of her kin. It was true though. Pa Bender may not have learned his child-rearing skills from  _Parents_  magazine but he sure as heck raised a Can-Do Kid in the years after he took a tire iron to Ma Bender's skull when his Sunday morning pancakes turned out like hubcaps yet again. Missy could cook up those meaty stews Pa, Jared and Lee loved to warm their bellies with after the hunt, she could keep house, hotwire a car, pick a lock, wring a chicken's neck by fisting its head and twirling its body around one-handed, and swing that tire iron just as effectively as Pa had that Sunday morning. She could hunt in the dark, bring down a deer, a pig or a _human bean_ at 100 yards with a gun, an arrow or her trusty slingshot, and happily warm her hands on the flames as she burned whatever was left after Pa and Jared took the meat off whatever – whoever – they'd hunted that night.

In fact, wash her, buzzcut her, and dress her in 501s and biker boots, and she'd have been nothing so much as a small female version of Dean Winchester, and had John Winchester been her father he'd have been proud of her. Only more artistic than Dean if truth be told – Missy carved with care: a slash to the left, a matching slash to the right, a poke in this eye, a poke in that eye, bullet to the left knee, bullet to the right knee; all nice matching pairs. Pa was awful proud of it and called it her feminine side, said his little girl was getting all-growed-up and was a real lady.

And there was another big difference. Even though Dean talked the talk he really only killed because he had to. He was cold-blooded and ruthless in the doing of it, and he got a degree of pleasure and satisfaction out of the fact it was one less fugly preying on innocents in the dark. But it wasn't that kind of visceral pleasure Missy got from feeling a knife glide through fat, slice through muscle, and grind through bone, or from knowing that in a split second that screaming, weeping, snot-dripping, blindly staggering long pig's head was going to explode in a cloud of blood, hair, and skull as her bullet plowed into it.

Those vital life skills – being industrious, being capable, and all of the collateral talents they'd blessed her with – ensured that Missy Bender wasn't still in the closet when Dean Winchester tried in vain to beg a ride from Deputy Kathleen Hudak. In fact Missy wasn't even in the house. And that was how she knew exactly where the boys were headed.

As to the why of Missy thinking to hunt them down in the dark just like her Pa and brothers had shown her how to, that was another word entirely.  _Obsessive._ A word that would have appeared pretty regularly in Missy's file had she ever gotten within a country mile of Hibbing Middle School's guidance counselor.

When Missy set her mind and heart to something she was powerful caught up – and industrious and capable in pursuing it. And right now, Missy had set her mind and heart to something. For Missy was in love. It didn't matter that she'd never read one of those teen magazines, or whispered and giggled about that special boy in the bathroom between lessons with her classmates. She knew it was love: love at first sight, like Pa always said it was when he'd seen Ma for the first time, and joked that it was when Jared had seen Patsy the cow for the first time.

Truth was, she'd never clapped eyes on anything as purty as that boy, standing all tall and clean and strong amid the dirt and squalor. He shone, she thought dreamily, as she sat there in the dark just behind Deputy Hudak's car, just like those pictures of angels in Pa's bible. So shiny and glowing there in the dark, his eyes liquid and long-lashed, like all the deer she'd ever marked in her gunsights. He even looked purty after he'd come round from Pa braining him with the skillet, all panicked eyes and eyelashes spiked with sweat and tears after Pa branded him with the poker. And especially after he thought Lee had shot that other boy, eyes wide and huge, panting breaths and little snuffling whimpering noises. It didn't matter that he'd been working away at the knots behind his back as she drowned in his eyes and though about how  _goldarn_  purty he looked all hurt like that, and how much purtier he'd look even badder hurt.

It didn't matter that he'd launched himself at her, grabbed her bodily and thrown her in the closet. Missy was in love. Missy wanted. And what Missy wanted, Missy got. So once she'd clocked the deputy on the back of the head with the same skillet her Pa had used just a couple of hours ago to knock Dean Winchester into the middle of next week, Missy set out to get what she wanted.

Hibbing Middle School's guidance counselor had come out of the DC schools system and had that good woman gotten the opportunity to spend time with Missy Bender, obsessive wasn't the only thing she'd have noted about the child.  _Sky west and crooked_  was how Pa described it.

  Having come out of the DC schools system, Hibbing Middle School's guidance counselor would have used a way more simple description.

She'd have chosen the word insane.

**2\. Squeal Like a Pig Trouble**

Missy and Jared just haven't seen eye to eye since he started sneaking into her bedroom in the dark, so she takes advantage of the fact her brother's out cold by taking an ax and giving him forty whacks, just like that poem Lee loves so much. 

But she doesn't have to give her Pa forty-one, because it doesn't take a genius to work out that he isn't going to be dancing the polka again any time soon. She roots around in his jacket pocket for his chawin' tobacco, since he won't be needing it now and she knows it soothes Lee when it all gets too much for him, and pulls his blood-spattered cap down tight on her head as a souvenir.

It takes a couple of buckets of water to bring Lee round, Missy knowing full well that the half-wit of the family might be of some use to her simply because of his brawn. Lee stares, wide-eyed, at the mess that used to be Pa's face and shakes his head, muttering for a few minutes about how _that just don't beat all_ before Missy scolds him to his feet, "We ain't got time for grievin', Lee!" and chivvies him on outside the barn and up into the house to get Pa's black bag from the dresser.

"What about the bitch?" Lee says, giving the cop a shove with his boot as he walks by her.

And darnit if Missy hadn't gone and forgotten all about that cop, sprawled in the dirt next to her car.

Sam hates woods of any description, keeps flashing to chases through woods, werewolves in woods, wendigos in woods, wendigos that grab his brother when he isn't looking and hide him away where Sam can never hope to find him. What might seem peaceful, restful, tranquil in dappled sunlight, oozes with malevolence and bleeds evil in the dark, and trees conceal way too much, he thinks morosely as they trudge along the muddy trail that should take them off the property. And woods are way too quiet, his inner voice adds – well, except for the noise of running water in the distance. Good white-water rafting in these parts, he muses, by way of taking his mind off the whole _trees-fuck-where-is-my-brother?_ train of thought.

Dean is all-eyes, darting here, there, everywhere, at every possible trajectory that might be the source of _incoming._ "Timber fuckin' wolves, Sammy," he announces grandly. "We have the unbefuckinglievably bad luck to be afoot smack in the middle of wolf central. Christ, we should find some big sticks or something, huh?"

Dean, always unsettled without something he can use for killing, Sam thinks fondly, and he feels one of those sudden, overwhelming surges of affection that catch him by surprise when he least expects it.

They've been walking maybe twenty minutes or so according to Sam's wristwatch and his brother is flagging already, shivering in the cold. "Kid wear you out in there, dude?" Sam mocks.

Dean snorts and mutters something under his breath. Then all of a sudden he stops and very clearly says, "Gonna hurl," before stumbling off the path and proceeding to do just that, falling to his knees in a series of dry and not-so-dry heaves into the undergrowth. "Fuck," he snaps out, coughing whatever's left onto the ground, panting and spitting. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve, stares at the puddle of vomit for a minute, considering it, before flopping back onto his haunches in the dirt and taking a shaky breath in.

"Sammy, we are now officially fucked. Because the friendly neighborhood timber wolf has a sense of smell one hundred times greater than a man's. That chunder smells pretty ripe to me. Which means that we are shaping up to be main course in the biggest feeding frenzy since that night of the giant man-eating rabbits movie."

Sam gags himself, swallows it back down.

And Dean is now officially rambling. Because, "Man, that's a great movie. All those bunnies coming up over the crest of the hill, all slo-mo, and all fuckin' _teeth_. God. Rabbits really creep me out. You know their teeth never stop growing? I seen it on Animal Planet – you have to take them to the vet to get them cut. Fuckin' awesome special effects in that movie, dude. Remember?"

"No Dean, can't say as I do," Sam says, rolling his eyes because, _random, much_?

Dean stares owlishly up at him in the moonlight, nods sagely. "Could have sworn you were there. They weren't like fuckin' Thumper, I can tell you that. Though it isn't as good as that giant ants movie where they have to torch the sewers to kill the fuckers…"

Dean just doesn't ramble without a reason, a fact confirmed for Sam when he leans down to heave his brother up and Dean lets out a strangled yelp as soon as Sam grips his upper arm. And come to think of it, Dean's perspiring an awful lot considering it's forty degrees, if that. So Sam leaves him to slump back down into his spot, to the accompaniment of a sharp intake of breath and then a mournful, "Jesus. You'd think she could have given us a ride."

Sam sits down next to his brother, suddenly feeling it himself. "You going to tell me where it hurts?" he says quietly.

"Skillet in back of the head," says Dean, before rushing out something else at the tail end that sounds like _brnmerehopker_.

"Dean," Sam prods, world-weary. "Come on, I need to know if you're likely to faceplant any time soon."

"Burned me with a red hot poker."

" _Jesus_ ," Sam cries, rounding on his brother. "Where? Shoulder? Jacket. Off. _Now_."

Dean huffs annoyance as he eases off the jacket, exposing torn, charred fabric and Sam hisses out between his teeth as he peels it away from the wound. He frowns in sympathy as his brother winces away from his probing fingers. "Christ, it's filthy. You should have said something."

"Well, I was real busy at the time fighting off that freakin' wildcat kid of theirs," Dean snaps back. "And how clean are your hands? You just fuckin' stuck them in there. It was you sacked out in the barn in all the cowshit, not me. You've probably just left God knows what in there… mad fuckin' cow disease, knowing my luck."

Good point, Sam concedes, putting a liberal application of antibiotic ointment on the very top of his mental _to-do_ list if they ever get out of these damn woods, as his brother stares at him with bleary eyes. "Am I going to have to carry you?" he sighs.

Dean blinks slowly, doesn't seem to hear him. "That fucker," he murmurs. "That old guy, her Pa… I keep seeing him."

He reaches up, dips his head into his palm, and the reference has Sam shivering himself with the memory of the old man in glorious technicolor hi-definition close-up, the stench of unwashed sweat, liquor and worse, his amused grin, the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, all run through with the power that came with aiming, firing, severing that fragile hold on life.

As if Dean is reading Sam's mind, he slurs on. "I keep seeing his eyes, Sam. The look in them. Thrill of the hunt, joy of the kill." He comes out from behind his hand. "I've felt those things myself, seen them in my own eyes when I look in the mirror. Seen them in dad's eyes."

Sam swallows, replies dryly. "We're not like them." He doesn't like how unconvincing it sounds, but the flashing lights of Kathleen Hudak's patrol car illuminating the sky back down the trail is a welcome distraction. "I'll flag her down," he says, as he gets up. "She didn't know you were hurt. Look pathetic."

He walks stiffly into the middle of the trail, knowing the moonlight means she should see him clear enough as the car grinds towards them, starts raising his arms to wave them.

The cry from behind him is rasping and urgent, and surprisingly alert.

" _Sam_! It's not her! Truck! _Truck_! It's not her!"

And Sam has to really squint but yep, tucked right up behind the car is an old jalopy, lights off but now suddenly flashing on as the door opens and there's a crescendo of baying and buckshot… and in that split second, it occurs to Sam that no self-respecting backwoods nutjob comes complete without a couple of pitbulls and a rifle powerful enough to take down a moose. Probably a fucking Winchester rifle at that.

Sam pirouettes gracefully at the same time as he sprints back to his brother, who's already crashing off the trail and in between the trees. His longer legs catch him up fast. "Are you going to make it?" he yells over at Dean, who's already gasping from the exertion and looking none too steady on his legs.

"River… throw off the dogs," Dean shouts back between labored breaths as they race pell mell between the trees, barely able to see, arms windmilling to fling branches aside, Sam now grabbing his slower-moving brother's arm to help him regain some momentum. And Sam prays to all that's holy for the water to be _just there_ beyond the crest of the hill as he hears the awful frenzied, shrieking din of the dogs getting closer and closer, and he can't help flashing back to Bobby Singer once telling him that a pitbull's bite force was _two thousand pounds per square inch, boy_ , and imagining that on his injured brother's leg, because the fuckers are right behind them now and—

—They plunge into the river and it feels like a thousand icy needles penetrating Sam's body as the water takes their feet from under them and catapults them downstream. It's only when he hears frantic whimpering that he realizes the dogs followed them in, but the threat is over as the smaller animals are swept ahead of them and he and his brother toss and tumble in the water, desperately trying to keep their heads above the flow long enough to draw breath before being sucked into the maelstrom again.

Sam manages to get his feet under him, haul Dean along in his wake, closer and closer to the safety of the shallows, and for a few precious moments it's going to be okay. But his hands are already numb with cold and it's impossible to keep his grip on his brother. Dean is carried away, thrashing about, eyes frantic with fear, Sam screaming his frustration at the trees as he scrambles up onto the shore. He leaps to his feet, whirls around, and knows the all-consuming relief of seeing his brother wearily drag himself out of the water roughly fifty yards further along the riverbank.

The other side of the riverbank.

But alive and in one piece, nonetheless.

In some far-off corner of Sam's mind an alarm bell is ringing, alerting him to the fact that he's totally lost his bearings and has no idea if he's on the same side of the river as the fuglies or his brother is. But for a moment he collapses on his butt, sucks deep, shuddering breaths into his aching lungs, coughs up at least a couple of shot glasses of brackish river water.

Then he pushes himself up onto his feet, groaning with the effort, and starts making his way down the riverbank so he'll be opposite his brother, just now on his hands and knees and coughing up his own lungs. Sam feels bruised all over, is sure he smashed into more than just a rock or two as they were pitched along in the water, and he rubs his sore ribs and winces as he coughs again.

He glances along and over at Dean and just _there_ in the corner of his eye he sees something moving, dark, small, crouched. Moving stealthy and fast, fast and _faster_ towards his apparently dazed brother, and now in some far-off corner of Sam's mind klaxons sound and emergency flares rocket up into the sky, trailing smoke and sparks in their wake.

" _Fuck!_ Dean! _Dean_! Jesus, Dean!" he hollers, desperately trying to attract his brother's attention over the rush of the water, waving his arms wildly, jumping up and down, bending to pick up a rock and hurling it as hard as he can, seeing it splash into the raging foam a good six feet short of where he needed it to hit. He wades in thigh deep, already feeling the water's ferocious tug, knowing that swimming against the current just isn't an option.

And he's horrified.

"Dean! _Dean_!"

And it all slows down into the same appalling slow motion from that fucking _dire_ night of the giant man-eating rabbits movie that Sam does remember watching with Dean, all snuggled up safe from monsters against twelve-year-old big brother warmth, feeling secure and knowing nothing would ever get past Dean to get to him and—

— _Dean is oblivious as the dog streaks through the air and slams into his back, but he rouses enough to roll over and force his arm as far as possible into powerful jaws that_ —

—scissor from side to side, Bobby had said, as they grind down, shredding skin and muscle and snapping bone, all too easy with two thousand pounds of bite force per square inch; and Sam is screaming, and tears stream down his face as he sinks to his knees in the mud and screams and screams his brother's name and—

— _Dean is fighting for his life and he knows it. The dog looses his arm and great gobs of blood and saliva splash in his face, and then it grips his upper leg just above the knee and worries and shakes him as if he were feather light. Red hot lightning bolts of pain race up his thigh, and he can hear screaming but for some reason he's sure it isn't him, that this grim battle for survival is going on in silence on his part even as the dog snarls its enjoyment and_ —

—it suddenly falls silent, and Sam, knowing what the silence must mean, doesn't want to look, can't bear to look because he knows it will be his undoing, wants to just stay face-down in the mud with his arms around his head and his ass in the air for the rest of time, so he won't ever have to look. But he can't, because he hears gunfire, and stones ricochet up and away from where the bullet hits, just a few feet away.

He looks up.

Dean, unbelievably, is using the arm the dog didn't mangle to push up from a belly-down position and crawling blindly away from the animal, now sitting some way off to the left. The last time Sam saw the man on the river bank was when he hauled him into the cage back at the Bender place, he thinks, as another bullet pings close by. He rockets upright, launches himself into a clumsy stagger, and ducks behind a tree, because as much as he wants to launch himself at his brother he knows damn well he can be of no use to Dean with a bullet – or pitbull – buried in him.

"Dean. _Dean_. God, Dean." Sam peers out from his hiding place, knows tears and snot are trickling down his face, but nothing matters. He only just got his brother gifted back to him after the rawhead debacle. "Dean," he whispers. "No. _No_."

And his agony is complete as the kid, the girl, who can't be much more than twelve or thirteen, walks up behind his tattered, bloody, confused wreck of a brother and delivers the coup de grace, pistol-whipping him with gusto.

So purty, thinks Missy, as she looks down on her angel boy. She knew he'd look even purtier once the dogs had a chance at him, all covered in slippery-slick blood and ivory bone glistening through ripped jeans like the mother of pearl inlay on her Ma's dressing table.

She pulls out a picture she took the time to tear from Pa's bible before they hauled out, unfolds it, holds it out to Lee to inspect: the Angel Gabriel in all his golden, heavenly beauty.

"Look," she says, wisely. "Like I said."

Her brother studies it for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Sure is a good likeness, Missy," he says, and expertly spits a mouthful of tobacco over at the dog. " _Bullseye_."

Missy reverently folds the picture back up and pushes it deep down into her pocket, nods to herself.

"I'm keeping him."

**3\. The Lost Boys**

From his vantage point, Sam sees the man lean down and heft Dean's limp body over one shoulder before he, the kid, and the dog vanish into the trees on the other side of the river.

And he's frozen in that moment of seeing his brother disappear, even though his mind is bellowing at him to move, _move_ , fucking _do something, anything, but just_ move.

But his body won't obey. It's as if he's rooted to the spot and eons of time pass by… he grows old, long gray hair and beard, leathery skin, clawed fingernails, vines growing up his body, birds nesting in his hair, squirrels gamboling at his feet… because he froze for so long he became a part of this place, a monument to his lost brother. And hikers pass by and point at the local landmark: the boy whose grief turned him to stone.

And then it all just bubbles up and Sam is on his knees, much as Dean – _Dean!_ – had been, God, only twenty minutes ago, retching so hard he knows that any moment now he'll be feeling his balls at the back of his throat. Once done, he collapses in the dirt, fisting great handfuls of soil and dead leaves, slamming his hands on the ground, _no, no, no, no._

The sun rises.

Water gurgles.

Trees rustle.

Birds sing.

Insects buzz.

_All the sounds of the earth are like music…_

Sam wants desperately to believe his brother is calling him, somewhere in his head. _Help me! God, somebody help me! Sam! Sam!_

And so he picks himself up, and dusts himself down, and starts all over again.

Movement.

Rocking.

The world is upside down and his eyes see the earth streaking past at a terrifying speed.

He can smell the coppery scent of his own blood. He hurts: a screaming burn, like bolts of electricity coursing through his body, _please no… not that, not again…_ His head throbs. _Fuckin' Scanners head… explode at any minute… aspirin, dude…_

There's someone just there, a hazy image at the furthest reaches of his mind and he's squinting to see who it is, but his eyes don't seem to be working and even though the blur's lips move he can't hear what it's saying. He strains to hear but there is something closer, noise looming up in a cacophony, louder and louder. It distracts him from the blur… _who are you?_ He knows the blur matters in some way. But it hurts to think and when he lets the blur slip away it doesn't hurt so much, so he lets it go and it fades into the distance until it's just a speck on the horizon.

Sam needs to get to the other side of the river and there's no way he can swim it, so he sets off at a steady, energy-conserving trot upstream, hoping to find shallows, a bridge, even one of the cops who should be swarming around the Bender place by now. And somehow finding the very shallows he seeks not ten minutes after he starts out makes it so much worse because if they'd only gone in that direction and crossed there, they might have been able to throw the dogs off the scent for long enough to shimmy up a tree.

Sam carefully picks his way across, because slipping and bashing his brains out won't help, and once he's on the right side _Dean's side_ of the river, he forces himself to stop and think, think beyond the ice-cold fear and burning-hot panic, the dizzying need to find his brother _now_.

_He needs something he can use for killing._

For a long moment, Sam looks downstream. Then he heads into the trees, walks purposefully back towards the Bender farm, his mind feverishly racing through all of the possible eventualities should he walk into the FBI and local law enforcement the deputy spoke of. And then he glances to his left and sees salvation in the shape of the patrol car, abandoned just far enough into the woods to conceal it from any road traffic. _Gun,_ he thinks. _In the trunk. And wheels_. And he feels a surge of hope that now at least he has a chance to catch up.

He jogs up to the empty car, and his knees almost give way in relief when he sees the keys in the ignition. _No need to hotwire, thank fuck_. He reaches in through the open door, grabs them, trots around to the trunk, unlocks it… and a screeching whirlwind explodes out of it, ramming into him and knocking him flat on his back while fists flail in his face and feet fly everywhere.

And then, almost immediately, " _Sam_? Sam Winchester?"

Sam risks peeling his hands away from his face and stares straight up at Deputy Kathleen Hudak, straddling his hips, hair and eyes wild. "They took my brother," he tells her.

And saying it makes it real. And Sam brings his hands up to cover his face again and hollers out his anger and loss.

He isn't moving any more.

But he still hurts, shards of agony shooting up his leg and arm, his head throbbing mercilessly.

He hears voices, cutting in and out, like he's twirling the dial on the car radio, snatches of a conversation interrupted by bursts of static and a sparking throb in his head… _pretty bad off… wrap his leg… bleedin' like a stuck pig… messin' up his pants…_

And then a face looms right up into his, voice deafening him, booming so loudly in his head he sees stars and whimpers from pain that sizzles every nerve ending.

"What's your name then, boy?"

Someone… someone trying to help him?

"Smm…?" he murmurs, long and slow on the sound, on the sheer effort involved in forming it with dust-dry tongue and lips.

"I said, what's your name?"

"Hrts…" he slurs, as red hot needles pierce his brain. "P-pls… hp… _hrts_ …"

And then they touch his leg and he screams and bucks, and his fingers scrabble at… _soil? Leaves?_ And he floats off on a sea of smarting agony, but even though he knows he must surely be dying, it's not as important as the fact that suddenly hits the microscopic part of his brain that's still lucid.

He doesn't know the answer.

 _He doesn't know his name_.

But suddenly a soft voice is crooning low in his ear.

"Gabriel. Your name is Gabriel. And angels are watching over you, my sweet baby boy…"

_Angels are watching over you…_

And he drifts off to the soft voice, turning his cheek into the soothing hand.

"It's a bad idea."

Hudak stands her ground even as Sam reaches behind her into the trunk of the patrol car, grips hold of the barrel of what feels like a standard police-issue assault rifle, and finds himself brandishing a shovel.

She gestures in the direction of the farm. "Sam, the FBI—"

"Isn't an option for Dean," he cuts in. "I think you know that." His voice stays level, calm, steady. "Gun. I need a gun. Where's your rifle?"

"Sam, this isn't Detroit," Hudak says patiently, like she's talking to a recalcitrant child. "Nothing happens here…" She trails off and shrugs at the irony. "The only reason I even have the shovel is for roadkill. That's as exciting as it gets around here. Usually."

Sam takes deep, grounding breaths, closes his eyes for a second, then starts walking.

"Wait! Wait a minute! _Oh_ …"

Glancing back, Sam sees the woman sitting down very suddenly on the ground, face distinctly greenish.

He knows she needs his help, that he can't just leave her. Knows what not leaving her means for his brother.

He walks back, grips her upper arm and heaves her to her feet, supporting her as they walk. "Get in the car," he says wearily. "You need a doctor. I'll drive you back into town."

And then all of a sudden she stops in her tracks, says, "Doctor."

"They knocked you out, yes?" Sam says. "You need to get that looked at."

"No! No, I mean yes, yes, they knocked me out," she answers, and then words tumble out of her mouth, fast and urgent. "It's just what you said about the doctor. Listen, these folks keep themselves to themselves, I've never even seen them in town. But there was a bag in the house full of pill bottles, prescriptions…"

Sam doesn't follow, and _huh?_ must be written all over his face, because she rolls her eyes and continues.

"Drugs. _Prescriptions_. The town doctor must know them." She sees he's unimpressed and huffs at him. "Well it's a start."

It's a reach, is what it is.

But reality bites. Sam feels lost without his brother at his back. He doesn't have a plan, it's years since he really did this, and Dean is the tactician. There really is no hope in Hell that he'll be able to catch them up now. So he helps Hudak into the car, starts the wagon up and reverses slowly out of the woods and onto the trail, even as his gut curls up and every instinct screams at him that he's abandoning his brother.

"Follow my light. Yes, I've treated the Bender boy for several years now, Deputy, but I honestly don't think I can help you out here… Any headache? Photosensitivity?"

"Headache, yes. Lights okay. Looked like some pretty heavy-duty meds up at the Bender house, Doc. Tranquilizers. Lithium… isn't that for manic depression?"

Swenson gives Hudak a measured look over the top of his spectacles. "There's a limit to what I can tell you, Deputy. You know that. Patient confidentiality. Ice on the bump and you know the drill: back here if the headache gets worse."

Hudak lays it on the line. "Look, this is going to be on the national news tonight. It's hills-have-eyes stuff. Even if those drugs are legal it's not going to look good if some reporter somewhere gets a sniff of the fact that the town doctor might have known something funny was going on out there."

"That sounds like a threat," the man says, his tone chilly enough to remind Hudak why she drives to Grand Rapids Healthcare any time she needs a medical consult.

"That's because it is a threat," she snaps. "A boy's life is at stake. These monsters have been killing boys up there, including my brother. Do you really want to get sucked into this?"

The man is silent for a minute before exhaling long and slow. "The drugs were for the son. The younger one… Lee, as far as I can remember. He has… psychiatric issues. That's all I can tell you."

Hudak pushes even so. "What could this mean for the boy he took?"

Swenson frowns. "Well, his mood is controlled by the meds. He always seemed docile when I saw him. But he needs to take the meds… the old man was pretty good at making sure that happened."

Joining the line to the next dot, Hudak asks, "And what if he doesn't take the meds?"

"His mood will cycle up and down," Swenson concedes. "He'll be anxious, irritable, potentially aggressive… his sex drive might increase."

"God." Hudak abruptly rises to her feet. "Lee has taken this boy, Doc… you need to level with me on this. Does he have any homosexual tendencies that you know of?"

The doctor stares back at her for a minute, his expression gone thoughtful before he responds.

"None that I know of."

Sam jumps up as Hudak exits the exam room, and she motions him along with her. He sees that she seems agitated, tense, her manner urgent. She strides ahead of him down the gravel path to the patrol car, scraping her hair back into an untidy bun as she walks, stifling a curse as the goose egg on the back of her head makes itself known. Once in the car and moving, she executes a swift u-turn that takes them up the main street.

"What did he say?" Sam demands. "Where are we going? What did he say?"

Her voice betrays no emotion. "We need to find your brother as soon as possible, Sam. And you need to stay calm for this."

"Stay calm for what?" Sam snaps. " _What_? What did he tell you?"

"The meds were the son's. If he isn't taking them it could get nasty."

And as Sam wonders how the heck the Bender son could be any nastier than he already is, she pulls up onto the driveway of a small clapboard house, pretty, gables, tree in the front yard. "What are we doing here?" he asks.

"We need guns," she says, slamming out of the car. "And supplies."

Swenson watches the patrol car roll away up the street.

He locks the office door, lowers the blind, picks up the plastic tray sitting on the gurney and walks through into the back of the house.

He opens the door into the garage. "What the fuck did you bring him here for?" he hisses.

Lee isn't used to this kind of anger, and he gapes. "Mikey, are you mad at me? You want me to make you feel all happy again?"

Swenson ignores him, walks around to the bed of the truck. The kid is a mess of ripped clothes and shredded flesh, but he's beautiful under the dirt and blood. _What a waste_ , he thinks.

"He's my new brother," Lee says proudly as he hovers at Swenson's shoulder. "Purty, ain't he? Name's Gabe. We're gonna have fun together. Maybe you and him can be buddies too, Mikey?"

His face is open, trusting, and Swenson takes deep breaths and forces it back down, _no time for those particular urges_ , got to get them out of here in case the deputy comes back. He concentrates on the matter at hand, ripping the denim, sloshing peroxide over the bites. They go down to the bone. For all his unholy habits, Swenson appreciates the perfect machine that is the human body, doesn't like to see it ripped asunder in this way. "Christ, you need to control those dogs," he grates out. "This is a mess."

No time for sutures, he patches it all up with butterfly stitches, knowing they'll be only fractionally better than useless. The boy twitches and moans feebly as he works, his undamaged hand raised up in front of him and fluttering back and forth as if he's trying to push something away: a defensive measure against pain that registers even though he's deeply unconscious.

The boy's left forearm is little better: broken bone poking through rended flesh. Swenson sets it, glances at his wristwatch – no time for a cast. He splints it, swiftly bandages it and the leg. As he finishes off, the creepy kid sister appears from nowhere, picks up a faded old pair of army combat pants Swenson keeps in the garage for yardwork.

"I'm taking these for Gabriel," she says, in a monotone. "His got all spoiled."

Swenson glances at her, back down at the boy. "You should leave him here. He's badly injured and the sheriff knows you have him. He'll slow you down." She stares him out through eyes that know too much, and he folds first and breaks her gaze.

"He needs some medicine," she snaps, and for the first time Swenson notices that she's hefting a rifle, part hidden behind her dress.

"He won't last out there in the woods," he says.

"You give us the medicine. Gabe'll be fine. I'll take real good care of him," she says, raises the rifle slightly.

And now Swenson just wants them out of his garage, _stat_. So he fetches a few blister packs of antibiotics, doesn't protest as the girl starts helping herself to the surplus canned food on the shelves lining the garage walls. Winter is almost over – he can stock up again during the summer.

"I don't need your help, Kathleen," Sam protests weakly, as she loads the duffels into her Jeep. "You could get into trouble—"

"Forget it, Sam. Anyway, I can hunt, track."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Girl scout," she says. "And my dog can sniff out anything."

Sam shivers, glancing over at Hudak's blessedly placid coonhound. "They have a dog. Pitbull. It, um… it attacked my brother."

And it's all coming back to him and he starts to hyperventilate until Hudak slaps him lightly on the cheek. "Snap out of it Sam. We'll shoot the damn thing if it comes anywhere close."

So he isn't alone after all.

They finish loading up, tool down the street, heading back towards the Bender property. And as they pass the doctor's house Sam sees the garage door rise up, a vehicle back out. He squints, cranes his head around to see, and now grabs Hudak's arm, causing the Jeep to zig and zag wildly.

" _Fuck_! Turn around," he cries. " _Turn around!_ That's them! Pulling away from the doctor's house…"

His heart and his mind race. They were there all the time… he sat in the office and all the time his brother was in the garage, needing help, needing _him_. He drops his face into his hands and can't even bring himself to see if they're gaining.

He should have known.

_He should have sensed it_

**4\. Off to Never-Never Land**

"Jesus!" Sam bites out as the Jeep tools along the asphalt. "Go faster!"

But Hudak replies, with pristine logic: "They don't know it's us, Sam. We follow at a safe distance, see where they go…" She glances over at him where he sits, hunched in the passenger seat. "If your brother's hurt, a car chase isn't going to help him."

And Sam knows she's right, so he keeps chewing his knuckles as they cruise along, a hundred or so yards behind the truck, all the way out of town to where the road forks and heads out to the sticks. At this distance they can see a figure – _the kid?_ Sam wonders – sitting in the bed of the truck, but she doesn't seem to have noticed them at all.

The forced calm is unbearable, and Sam can see that Hudak's knuckles are white as she grips the steering wheel and curses under her breath.

"What?" he snaps, looking back and forth from her to the truck in the distance.

"They're speeding up," she says, frowning. And it's true, because Sam is now aware of the almost imperceptible increase in their own speed.

"I think we've been made," Hudak murmurs, and it's as if the truck's occupants heard her, because Sam suddenly hears the roar of its engine as it screams out of sight in a cloud of dust.

Hudak floors the gas pedal, the Jeep responds, and Sam is officially part of his first car chase since he hefted his duffel and left his brother standing in the rain outside some no-name motel in some no-name one-horse Oklahoma town, almost three years before. And now he can hear the heavy blat of gunfire, and something pings off the right-hand side mirror. Some sixth sense tells him to duck, pulling Hudak down with him as the windshield shatters over them both.

"Jesus!" Hudak cries, as they swerve wildly, and Sam feels the world going ass over tip, while Hudak's dog barks in excitement.

The top-heavy SUV seems to hang in the air for an eternity before flipping over onto its side and sliding along the blacktop, sparks flying and metal shrieking as it grinds slowly to a halt. Suspended sideways by his seatbelt, Sam braces himself against the driver's seat, gazes out at the road ahead. The empty road ahead.

And he and Hudak share a look that speaks volumes.

A mile or so down the road, Lee Bender pulls off into the endless woods, eases into the trees as far as he can. He leaps out of the truck, whooping. "Did you see that!" he crows at his sister. "That's goldarn the best thing I ever saw, damn straight! I sure hope I get to do that one day!"

Missy glowers, and after a minute or two, Lee pipes down. He knows who's the boss of him. "Well I think I laughed hard enough to bust me a rib," he remarks thoughtfully, rubbing at his ample gut. He glances into the truck bed. "Gabe doin' okay?"

"It's Gabriel," Missy snaps. "He's fine."

Still out cold in fact, Lee notes, peering in to where his ashen-faced new brother bonelessly reclines.

Missy hops nimbly over the side of the truck, stands for a second, chewing on her bottom lip. And then her shoulders tense, her eyes going slitty and devious, and suddenly she's all business, cold and calculating.

"You got a plan, Missy?" Lee nudges, because he knows that look, remembers how Pa used to say it made her look as cunning as a fox who remembered to take his really big knife with him when he stopped by the henhouse.

"We need to lose the truck," she says.

Sam hauls Hudak up and out of the passenger door window, and she stands and examines the wreck of her car as Sam stands and stares at the horizon.

"That was my first car chase," she says, and he moves over to stand next to her in front of the Jeep.

"I'm sorry about your car," he says distantly, his mind miles away. _Dean…_

She rubs at the back of her head. "It's not my car," she says, ruefully. "Ex-husband's. I'm taking care of it for him while he's in Iraq."

And Sam thinks to himself that irony can be pretty ironic sometimes, and he laughs. He sits down heavily in the dust and laughs and laughs, until he cries. And Hudak squats next to him and rubs his back while he sobs.

It's only as the tow-truck rides them back down the main street a half-hour later that Sam remembers, and once they pull up outside the sheriff's office he jumps out of the cabin and walks fast and purposefully up the sidewalk.

Hudak leaps down, dog in tow, and calls after Sam, torn between following and bailing out of this mission. Her head aches, crap knows how she's going to tell Travis about his Jeep. She's been beaten up, locked in the trunk of her own squad car, shot at. She should be going through channels instead of playing duck-duck-wild-goose-chase with this kid she doesn't even know.

She starts after him, stops, retraces her steps, looks up at the office door. The FBI should have finished with the preliminaries now, there might be news. But the look that had been on the boy's face…

She suddenly thinks of his brother: his impossibly perfect features, the gleam in his eyes, the pathetic excuse when she asked him why he wasn't a three-hundred pound African-American. Whatever he might have done in St. Louis – or not done, as she's now inclined to think – he doesn't deserve to be filleted by the local cannibals. And she feels a sudden upsurge of her own grief and rage, as she thinks that her brother didn't deserve it either.

And so she starts out after Sam again, only to be pulled up by a hand on her arm. Cal Mobley, with an expression like a bulldog chewing a wasp.

"Glad I caught you, Deputy," the old man hails her jovially. "Suits in your office don't seem to know nothin'!"

Hudak gives him a tight smile, turns to keep walking. "Yeah, Cal, look I'm kind of in a hurry," she throws back over her shoulder. "Police business. Can this wait?"

"Well not if you want to be catching them, ma'am, no," Mobley grumbles. "That waste of skin Bender kid."

She whips around. "Bender kid? Lee Bender?"

"Well, either him or his brother. Goldarn coldcocked me out in my upper forty, and when I came round both my mules was gone."

Hudak gets an eyeful of Swenson flying past the inside of his window as she races up the porch steps, and she muses abstractedly that he's taking a licking even as he tries to keep on ticking. But he has twenty-five years on Sam, and the age difference is beginning to tell as Hudak skids to a halt in the doorway to his office to see the man fly through the air and crash against the bookcase.

It topples with the force, books and papers scattering everywhere, and Sam face set, single-minded and utterly ruthless, barrels towards the man again, dodging past Hudak as she protests.

"Sam! Jesus! No, stop—" She has to crouch down on the floor as Swenson starts grabbing books and hurling them in an attempt to hold Sam off.

"Where would they take my brother?" Sam grits out, his rage barely controlled.

"I don't know," Swenson yells back. "They were waiting in the garage. I didn't know they were there! They held a gun to my head… ow, no—"

Sam has him by the scruff, snarls, "You lie," and all at once, Hudak is aware of a change in the air: a buildup of tension, like the pressure before a storm. The doctor seems to sense it too, and his face drains of any color it still had.

And Hudak doesn't know quite what happens but there's a shockwave, a release of something, and Sam casually flicks the man through the air as if he were weightless, the boy's lack of effort inexplicable even for his height and the breadth of his shoulders. And Hudak thinks, _what the fuck?_

Sam starts toward the barely conscious man again, and something tells Hudak she needs to get in there and end this now, but as she pushes up from the floor, she sees something that makes her heart stop. Right there, where they landed, having fallen out from one of the books Swenson threw, all fanned out in front of her. And she murmurs, "oh no, no, no…"

She picks a couple of them up, these awful, awful things that she knows will break this boy's heart for sure. But she's already thinking ahead, knows they can use them.

Sam heaves the man up from the floor, runs him up against the wall, pulls back a ham-sized fist – and Hudak is there in his face even before her brain has started telling her feet to move.

"You need to stop," she says loudly, clearly.

"I need this sonofabitch to tell me about my brother," Sam replies, and his voice is a flat calm that is terrifying.

She puts her hand on his arm, stays neutral. "Sam. You need to stop. I need to show you something."

It's like he's on autopilot when he looks at her, his eyes are vacant, as if the Sam she's so far seen has exited his body. She holds the photographs right up in front of his eyes, and he looks at them without seeming to comprehend at first.

"What are they…?" He puzzles, slowly at first, and then suddenly realizing. "That's…" He stops, looks at Swenson and then back again at the photographs, poorly lit but clear as day what they show. "And that's Lee Bender…"

He lets go of the doctor, who slides to the floor, walks slowly over to the one chair that hasn't been reduced to kindling, sits, and starts wringing his hands. "That man has my brother," he says dully. "That man has my brother."

Hudak leaves Swenson where he fell, kneels down on the floor in front of Sam, cups her hands around his. "We'll find him," she soothes. "I promise. I've got a lead." She looks over at the doctor's slumped body. "And he'll tell us what he knows now we have the pictures."

They don't make such good time with the mules and cart, but they can keep off the roads, and Gabe's comfortable. Best of all, Missy is happy, and she smiles her satisfaction at Lee.

"This was a great idea, Lee. I think your brain must be growin' back."

Lee smiles, sits up straighter, his chest swelling with pride, until his moment in the spotlight is interrupted by the increasingly loud keening coming from the cart. He glances back at the occupant. "Missy, he done started bleedin' again," he says, and Missy vaults off her mule, her consternation apparent.

Lee climbs down after her, hauls Gabe off the cart, easily carries him over to a sheltering tree, and lays him down on the icy ground. Gabe isn't awake, but he's hurting alright, Lee thinks, unhappily. "It just ain't right," he mutters, and looks over at the dog, sitting close by, panting. "You're a bad dog," Lee snaps, shaking his fist at the mutt. "One of these days…"

Missy tugs the bandage aside slightly, inspects the leg.

Lee hovers. "We can try giving him one of those pills Mikey gave us," he offers, helpfully. "Mikey said they'd stop him getting sickness in his leg."

Missy nods her consent and Lee roots Pa's bag off the saddle of Missy's mule, hands it over.

"This ain't good, Lee," Missy announces, as she pulls out a bottle of pills and shakes it. "Don't Pa always say to shoot them right there in the leg?"

Lee nods, because Missy's right, like always.

"Well that's cuz there's a lot of blood in a man's leg, Lee," she goes on. "It's 'portant. If you get shot in the leg, all your blood comes out. And then you're dead."

She touches Gabe's face tenderly as his head grinds from side to side in the dirt, looks up at Lee and sighs. "Lee. Make up a fire."

Missy rouses Gabe enough to push another one of the 'biotics in between his lips and dribbles water into his mouth until she can be reasonably sure it's gone. He's muttering and crying out nonsense, shivering, and his teeth clatter together uncontrollably. She bullies Lee's sweater off him, maneuvers it onto Gabe. He's buried in it, but it'll keep him warm.

"Gabe, you need to go back to sleep," she says, but if anything the keening is getting worse.

Lee looks up from the crackling flames. "Maybe he should take my medicine," he says. "Makes me feel powerful tired. Maybe help Gabe get some sleep?"

Missy crawls over to Pa's bag, pulls out another bottle, the another, squints at the labels. "S-e-c-o…" She looks over at her brother. "What color are your pills?"

Lee thinks for a minute, scratches his head. "Blue. I think."

Missy looks from one bottle to the other. Missy likes pink. And red. Pink and red it is, then. She shuffles over to Gabe and repeats the process, poking in the pills and then dribbling in the water, just like before.

Once done, she carefully unwraps the bandage from his leg, peers down at the wounds, slowly leaking a steady stream of blood. The butterfly stitches are all awry and she carefully picks them off. She roots in Pa's bag again for that bottle of stuff he uses on Lee whenever her brother has a funny spell and cuts himself, pours it over the bites. Gabe cries out, writhes around a bit.

"Well, no sense in puttin' it off any longer, Lee," she says. "Get over here and hold him real tight now while I do this."

Lee settles himself next to Gabe, pulls him up against his chest, tight as he can. Looks at Missy, nods. "I got him."

And Missy leans over to the flames, pulls the knife from where it has been resting, its blade buried in the embers. She presses it down on the wounds, and recoils as Gabe explodes into violent motion, eyes snapping open in utter shock and terror. His arms flail and he hammers his skull back against Lee's chest, hips thrashing, crying out an exhausted scream that fades into hoarse, garbled sounds of such intense distress that Missy sees fat tears pop out of Lee's eyes and start trickling down his cheeks.

"It's okay," Lee whispers in Gabe's ear. "It's okay, boy."

Missy places the blade back in the embers.

**5\. When She Was Bad, She Was Wicked**

Hudak squats down in front of Swenson's slumped body with a glass of water, dips the tips of her fingers in it, and flicks miniscule droplets into his face, while Sam sits and thinks that he'd have dragged the bastard to the bathroom by his feet and flushed the toilet over his head to rouse him. His gut is churning unpleasantly, and he can't get it out of his head, what the pictures show, can't get it out of his head that his brother is _out there_ , hurt and defenseless.

"We need to move this along," he starts curtly, and Hudak fixes him with a hard stare.

"Why don't you let me do my job?" she tells him, and even if she's firm her voice is gentle. "Because you won't be moving anywhere but a jail cell if he charges you with assault."

Sam bites his tongue, clenching his fists so hard he can feel his nails embedding themselves in his palms, as Hudak splashes more water at the oblivious man's face. After another minute Swenson groans and then abruptly sits up as it all comes back to him. The look he shoots Sam's way is mixed anger and fear.

"Keep that maniac away from me," he squawks at Hudak, but the Deputy doesn't acknowledge his plea, gets straight to business.

"So, these pictures of you and Lee Bender. Care to enlighten us?"

"He's an adult," the man snaps. "It isn't a crime."

"Well, no, not per se," Hudak concedes. "But as to whether Lee Bender qualifies as an adult…" She trails off in a way Sam thinks sounds meaningful, leaves it hanging for a minute before she adds, "I'd hate to think what might happen if these pictures fell into the wrong hands, Doc."

The man's face pales, and he gulps as she continues.

"Aiding and abetting in an abduction is a federal crime. We saw their truck pull out of here a half hour after we left."

Now Swenson's mouth starts to open and close like a fish out of water, and he starts to sputter. "No! No! They were in the garage, they had a gun… they forced me to help! And that boy, that boy…" He pauses and glances over at Sam, and Sam holds his gaze, manages to rein his own expression to impassive.

"He was badly injured…" Swenson goes on. "Arm broken, he'll be lucky to keep the leg if it gets infected. I tried to persuade them to leave him, but the girl wouldn't hear of it."

Hudak meets Sam's glance for a long minute. It's all pretty plausible, her eyes tell him, and he knows it's true.

"I know how this looks," says Swenson. "Believe me. But I actually care about Lee…"

Sam can't help but let out a huff of derision.

"It's true," the man insists. "The way they were living up there… it was inhuman. The father is – was – stark staring mad. And I didn't even know there was a kid sister until today. I just… I just tried to give Lee a break from it every now and then."

Hudak snorts, holds up the pictures. "And that's what this is? You giving Lee Bender a break?"

"It's not a crime," Swenson repeats.

"No," says Hudak, pushing up onto her feet. "But I'd say it gives me probable cause to search this place and remove any computer equipment you have on the premises."

And as she moves to unplug the computer from Swenson's desk, he caves. "The old man mentioned a cabin. Up north near a lake… either Pelican or Nett, I can't remember which. That's all I know."

Missy loves Gabriel, she really does. But that boy is way too noisy, she thinks, as she busies herself building up the fire. "It's about time we eat," she calls over to Lee, who's foraging around for more sticks to throw on the fire, before she directs her look down at her new brother. "Gabriel, stop hollerin' like that. Be a man about it."

She nods her head for emphasis, just like Pa always does when he tells Lee to stop complaining about those men who come visiting him, stares down at the can in her hand. The label has a picture of beans and franks on it. Beans and franks it is, then. She thinks for a few seconds, makes her way over to the cart, rummages in one of the bags for Lee's lucky railroad spike. She uses a rock to hammer it down into the can at intervals so the hole will be big enough to scoop out the contents and then sets the can down in the embers to warm.

Gabe is still moaning incoherently, tossing his head from side to side. Every so often he frantically scuffs the foot of his good leg in the soil and the sounds get louder, becoming soft cries, before dropping away to faint whimpers again, but it's a constant drone in her ears, on and on and on and _on_.

Missy stands up, paces. "I'm warming you some broth, Gabe," she tells him. He's hungry, that's what it is. There's dried soup in among the supplies Mikey gave them: she peels back the lid, slops in some water and mixes it to a paste.

Lee is nowhere in sight when she makes her way back over to Gabe. She pulls his blanket up from where his struggles have dislodged it, sits right up top and manages to haul his head and shoulders up onto her lap. His eyes are half-closed, his face gray, tear streaks tracking through the dirt and blood. And for a second she thinks maybe it was a dream that he was an angel, that she made a mistake, and that he fooled her. "Boys lie," she says bitterly. "Boys lie all the time. That's what Pa says. You lied, Gabe. That's bad."

Gabe's teeth are chattering and it's easy to dollop small quantities of the paste onto her fingers and poke it in between his lips, but not much of it seems to go down or even stay in, and pretty soon he's making choking noises.

"Be good, Gabe," Missy snaps. "I'm runnin' out of patience with you, but quick." But Gabe just isn't in the mood to be good, starts reaching up and trying to push her hands away and even retches out some of the food. "That ain't nice, Gabe!" she cries. "Don't you make me hurt you, boy!"

Just to show her brother that she can, Missy gives his sore leg a sharp nudge with her foot. He startles, croaks out a protest, and knocks the can of soup out of her hand, tipping what's left of the contents all over her. Missy jumps up, enraged, flinging him to one side, his head bouncing back onto the blanket with an audible thud. He coughs weakly a few times and then starts a soft, continuous lament that drills right through Missy's skull. And she starts to pace up and down the small clearing, hands pressed over her ears. "Shut up, you big baby!" she yells, paces some more, until she's had it to _here_.

She walks over to her brother, kneels, places her hand on his leg, over the filthy bandage. Squeezes hard, _harder_ , until he's shocked into total silence, his whole body convulsing and his mouth opening in a soundless scream that ends with his eyes rolling back into his head.

It's much quieter now, and Missy smiles. "Gabe, I love you best when you're good," she croons fondly, stroking his cheek. "I knew you was just fussin' cuz you was hungry."

Sam hasn't ridden a horse in years, but the Jeep is off the road and there's no way he can drive the Impala to Cal Mobley's upper forty. So he and Hudak pack some rudimentary supplies onto a mule and set off, after a hurried lunch he forces down even though he feels sick.

It all comes back to him as they travel: the easy swaying rhythm, the saddle so wide it's like sitting in an armchair. Hudak's dog, Nancy – _my dad named her after Nancy Reagan and no, I don't have a clue why_ – pacing along behind and occasionally lolloping ahead of them. It keeps preying on Sam's mind, the image of the pitbull hurtling at his brother like a canine ballistic missile, and he finds himself worrying abstractedly about what it might do to Hudak's dog if the hound mistakes an all-out attack for an invitation to sniff butts and make friends.

They make good time, following the tire tracks the truck left in its wake, and a break in the trees indicates where it left the farmland and entered the forest.

"I think we can assume they came back out this way too and knocked Mobley out," Hudak surmises. "He said he was mending the fence, which would be…" She turns around. "There. I'm pretty sure this must be the spot." She looks at Sam. "Shall we give it a try?"

Sam nods, roots in one of the saddlebags, pulls out one of Dean's tees. Hudak calls her dog, buries the animal's nose deep in the cloth. The dog is well used to this, inhales deeply, snuffles around on the ground and then is off at the trot, into the trees.

Within ten minutes they find the truck, and Sam rubs his forehead and breathes deep at the slick blood smeared in the bed. He has to swallow hard to keep his lunch down, and the food feels even more like a lead brick in his stomach. Hudak doesn't comment and he's grateful for her silence. And after a few minutes he mounts up again, and they move off in the direction the hound leads them.

"It's a pretty fair distance to the lakes," Hudak says. "Couple of days maybe, and a lot of ground to cover once we get there."

Sam can read between the lines: if they haven't caught up to his brother before they reach the lakes, it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"You sure you're okay about being out here at night?" Hudak cuts into his thoughts. "It can get pretty creepy."

Smiling tightly, Sam replies, "It won't be a problem. Dean and I have done a lot of hunting in woods just like this." Hunting way worse than a teenager and her half-wit brother too, he thinks. And in his head he can see his brother shaking his head in disbelief, _they're just people, dude_ …

"You're close, you and your brother," Hudak observes.

"We are," Sam says thoughtfully. "Well… we were. He pretty much raised me. Our dad was… not around much. It was just me and Dean, really."

"He said he saved your life – pulled you out of a house fire?"

"Yeah. I was just a baby, don't remember anything. He was four. Picked me up and carried me out of there. Our mom, she… she died."

Hudak pulls up, her face appalled. "Sam, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to pry. You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to."

But strangely, it's okay. "No, I don't mind," Sam says, even if there's a part of him that does, that screams at how unfair it all is. "I have pictures, but I didn't really know her. But Dean…" Sam drifts for a few seconds, thinks of that deep-down sadness that has always haunted his brother. "I don't think he's ever really gotten over it. And our dad sort of checked out really, after that. So Dean stepped up and he was more of a father to me than dad ever was. Changed diapers, cleared up puke, pulled my teeth for me, cut my hair, made sure I was fed. I don't think he knows how much I think about it, how much it means to me…" And suddenly it all wells up, floods out, Sam's fear, terror, worry, and his voice breaks. "Jesus, if you'd seen it, the way that fucking dog just, it just… like he was a chew toy. If Bender… he won't be able to stop him, he's hurt too bad…"

Hudak waits until he regains his composure. "Sam. We'll get him back. We will. I promise."

He takes deep shuddering breaths, presses the heels of his hands hard against the tears that threaten. "Dean gave up his childhood for me really. And I've never really told him… I've never really told him how much…"

"I think he probably knows, Sam," Hudak says.

"I wish I could be sure of that," Sam answers softly. "I left him, you know. Got a full ride to Stanford. And he was proud – proud like a father would be. But when I left…" He pauses, and the memory still cuts into him like the sharp edge of steel, his brother's desolate expression, Sam's acceptance letter crumpled in his hand, the way Dean's eyes felt boring into Sam's back as he walked away. "I was all he had, really. It broke his heart. It broke him a little bit, I think."

"But you're both traveling together now… close again, yes?"

"We are, but it's different. Before… he gave all of himself. _All_. But now… he sort of holds back. It's like he thinks I might leave again."

"And do you think you would?" Hudak pushes him.

"No," Sam says, and in that moment he believes it's true. "I need him, he needs me. I'll never leave him again as long as I live."

"Maybe you should tell him that when we find him," says Hudak.

Lee is beside himself with excitement when he and the dog walk back into the clearing, doesn't even want his beans and franks, which means it must be 'portant, Missy thinks.

"I found something," he says gleefully, rubbing his hands together. "Missy you just won't believe what I found!"

Her brother's sheer joy is infectious, and Missy starts to feel excited herself as he motions with his head.

"It's a surprise. Come see."

Missy looks over at Gabe, still asleep after his soup, and she's torn. "I don't know, Lee. Gabe's sleeping now and when he ain't sleeping he's kickin' up a storm, makin' noise you wouldn't believe. I don't want to wake him…"

"Missy, he looks sound asleep to me," Lee says pleadingly. "He'll be fine if we leave him! Come on, it ain't far… the dog can watch him."

Missy can live with that, so they set off, after Lee pulls his gun from the cart. "Just bein' safe an' all," he says by way of explanation.

The dog, left behind, whines for a few minutes, paces around, briefly lies by the fire. It can hear sounds, sounds of distress, the sounds of an injured animal. It trots over to the figure lying under the tree, sniffs it, goes back to the fire. The whimpering starts up again and the dog whines as if in answer. Then it crosses back over to the figure, circles it, sits next to it. Then it lies down, pressed up close against the man's back, and dozes.

It's better than Missy could have imagined. She and Lee sit up on a ridge and gaze down into a tidy campsite, laundry drying on a line stretched between two trees, a good-sized tent, a gas stove bubbling away on the fire. A woman is leaning over the stove, stirring the contents of a can as it warms, and a man crawls out of the tent with a book in his hand.

Missy glances over at Lee, smiles hugely. "You did real good Lee."

The light is fading fast and Nancy seems to have lost the trail. It's getting harder for Hudak to pick out the signs left by the mules and cart in the dark, so they set up camp for the night. They're both tired, not speaking much. Hudak puts up the tent while Sam heats up canned chili and pasta on the camping stove, and calculates in his head that he hasn't slept in thirty-six hours or so.

They eat in exhausted, companionable silence, squeeze into the tent. Hudak's steady breathing tells Sam that she's asleep within minutes.

And Sam lies there, the awful tableau of the dog ripping into his brother looping in his head.

The woman senses Missy's presence rather than hears her, and her head whips around. Lee appears from behind a tree on the other side of the clearing and winks at Missy as the man notices his wife's sudden tension and looks up.

Missy smiles. "We like your stuff."

**6\. Fearful Symmetry**

Sam wakes to the sounds of Hudak rummaging through her pack, sees his breath misting in front of him.

He lies there without acknowledging her.

 _How many hours has it been now?_ he wonders. How many hours of pain, confusion? Is his brother even now slowly bleeding out in the back of the cart, trundling though these endless fucking woods, staring up at the sky, hopeless? Does he know Sam is coming? _I'm coming_ , he thinks, as hard as he can, in his head. Can Dean sense him, hear him? It's as if it suddenly hits Sam point blank between the eyes how much his brother matters, and how much he has taken him for granted, taken it as given that Dean will always be there, ever loyal, ever faithful, ever giving – while he, Sam, took, took, took and rarely gave back.

He remembers when he left Dean – he always thinks of it as leaving Dean, never his dad, his dad doesn't even come into it when he thinks about that time – he had this romantic notion that he and his brother were tied so close he would know if anything ever happened to him. Maybe he'd get some phantom pain, like men who had contractions when their wives were in labor… or it would be like a Vulcan mind-meld connection transmitting some sort of SOS, telling him his brother was hurt, needed him. And sometimes Sam fancied that he would hear Dean calling him from whole states away, just like Princess Leia could hear Luke Skywalker calling her when he was hanging off the ass-end of Cloud City. He would just _know_.

But all the time he was at Stanford, he never did get that sixth sense that something was wrong, and he was comforted by the fact that Dean took such good care of himself, didn't take foolish risks, had dad looking out for his back, had nine lives. He didn't get himself hurt, didn't ever need to use Jedi mind tricks to hail Sam, all those miles away, soaking up the sun and chasing those dreams while Dean made the world a safer place for him. And it meant Sam could forget about his brother, not return the voicemail messages Dean left when he drunk-dialed him regular as clockwork on the last day of the month every month, _so… just checkin' in Sammy… wonderin' how college is workin' out for ya. Call me back, yeah? If you can, dude. Call me. You know where I am… I'll be here… Please. Please call…_

When Dean had shown up, Sam's notion of his brother dodging death with nary a scratch to show for it had been totally vindicated. Albeit pale from working the nightshift and catching up on his sleep during the day, Dean was – _vibrant_. And it had swept Sam off his feet. He'd forgotten just how his brother filled up space beyond his physical body. It was in his quick movements, his cat-like grace, his dangerous eyes, his sheer lust for life and the force of his personality jumping out of his skin and catching all who saw him in its spell. Dean shone, sparkled, _glowed_. It was infectious, it filled him with joy, it shed light on the darkness of his life after Jessica, as his brother gave, gave, gave.

And how could Sam resist being carried along in Dean's slipstream? Look at me, come with me, follow me, _be with me_ , it seemed to sing: his brother the pied piper and Sam dancing along behind him, following him to the end. It was tantalizing, enchanting, and Dean had bewitched him. He had always been a little bit in love with his brother really, he supposes, though in the purest possible way – for how could he not be? He was the moth to Dean's flame, and being with him again had been like falling that little bit in love with him all over again – the deepest, most profoundly felt relationship of his life so far.

Back at the motel in Rockford, after Sam had blasted Dean with rock salt and shot him in the head at point-blank range with his own gun, never mind that it wasn't loaded, he had walked in on his brother cleaning and dressing his ravaged chest. Dean had flinched slightly as Sam barged into the bathroom, and the expression on his face, reflected in the bathroom mirror, had been raw, wary, his guard down. And his back and torso had been crisscrossed with scars Sam had never seen before, red badges of courage from hunts Sam hadn't been on – because he'd been safely ensconced in the library, shooting hoops with his dorm mates, vacillating between pizza or Chinese, working up the guts to ask Jessica Moore for a date.

And while he was doing all that, erasing the voicemail messages, effectively writing his brother out of his life and forgetting his very existence, Dean hadn't been airily doling out exorcisms while laughing in the face of danger and hopping nimbly out of reach of tooth and claw, untouchable, immortal. Dean had been vulnerable. Dean had been hurt. Dean had cried out for him in his suffering – because if there was one thing Sam was still sure of at that moment of seeing Dean with his carefully erected defenses in disarray, it was that his brother had called his name in the night and no one else's.

And Sam hadn't known. And the guilt rises now, tossed about on a choppy ocean of misery and despair at the thought that his brother is at the mercy of the kind of human monsters that are so much worse than the nightmares they usually hunt. _Please Dean, please be okay_.

" _Fuck_. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

It's heartfelt and shakes Sam out of his memories, gets him with the program. He brings his thumb and forefinger up to the bridge of his nose, tries to pinch away the tension for a minute. Then he unzips his sleeping bag, emerges into an early morning chill that immediately seeps into his bones despite his layers and the shelter of the tent. He crawls through the tent flap, and has to squint in the brightness.

"Sam…" Hudak says gently. "I'm so sorry."

It's white all over the clearing where they camped: stark, blinding, dazzling whiteness. Sam freezes, his butt still in the tent, arms elbow-deep in icy snow. His mind screams, _no, no, no_. He doesn't even want to compute the odds of tracking his brother now that any trail the Benders might have left is buried under a foot and a half of snow. He just stares. He doesn't speak.

When they finally make it back to Hibbing, Sam leaves a message on his father's cellphone.

Missy hasn't slept well, scrunched up next to Gabe in the tent, Lee snoring on the other side. Another couple of Pa's pink and red pills took the edge off her brother's suffering as Lee carefully lifted him back into the cart and from there into the tent, as the sky took on the dirty gray hue that promised a late Winter snowfall. But it had still been hard for Gabe: breathless fussing, tears of misery, plaintive, desperate cries that had Lee bawling along in unison.

Once in the tent, laid on a luxuriously thick sleeping bag with the other pulled up to his chin, Gabe had quieted down, but his eyelids had fluttered open-shut all night and pressed up close Missy could feel his shaking and coughing right through to her own bones.

She's cozy under the sleeping bag and blankets and Gabe's face is turned into her warmth now. Her hand rests lightly on his chest, making comforting circles when he grows restless again, and she feels something hard there, hard and round. She pulls down the sleeping bag, slides her hand in under Lee's thick sweater, withdraws it to find a small amulet gripped in her palm: something that looks like a face staring up at her in the light that steeps in through the thin walls of the tent.

Missy squints, makes a decision, pulls out her pigsticker and saws on the cord holding the amulet until it snaps, Gabe's head jerking as it does. He rouses and gripes feebly as she exits the tent.

Her eyes water from the brightness of the early sun reflecting off the snow. Lee has already cleared a spot and has a fire going, the pot bubbling on the stove. "Leftover stew!" he grins broadly, as he sits on a log, warming his hands in front of the dancing flames. The dog is lounging under a tree, gnawing on something.

Missy smiles in answer, looks down at the amulet more closely now she can see it better. She's never seen anything like it. Ugly, unholy thing. She gazes at it for a minute, ponders. _He don't need it_ , she thinks, and she throws it without even looking to see where it lands.

He doesn't know where he is or if he's even real any more. Pain radiates up his leg and his arm, his shoulder throbs and there's a tightness in his chest, but the bone-deep cold he was vaguely conscious of has eased.

He tries to think through the pain, figure out what might have happened to make his leg and arm throb so badly he wants to weep with it, but it's relentless, clouds his mind. He grabs at a random memory as it floats past his mind's eye like a dust mote in a shaft of sunlight, a memory of being knocked flat on his belly, of noise, a din of barking, snarling, distant screaming, and a red hot fiery tugging at his leg, the knowledge that he was being torn apart, eaten alive. And how strange it was that his frantic struggle to live was taking place alongside calm acceptance that this was only right and proper, because he was living on someone else's time… but even alongside the resignation there had been a deep sorrow and regret… _I don't want to leave you…_

He has this feeling: this feeling of having forgotten something, forgotten to do something, forgotten… _someone?_ It's just there, a name… a _face_. He knows it's important and that if he can just remember it will change his whole life… but there's a barrier he can't see through or scale. And it's almost like his brain is on lockdown: like a huge metal door crashed down and separated him from the vital _thing_ , and a voice resounds in his head, _open the blast doors, open the blast doors…_

"Who's there…?" he whispers, and he can barely hear his own voice. "Who are you… please tell me who you are…"

Missy scoops out some stew into a bowl, mashes a red pill into it, tells Lee she's going to get some of it down Gabe's neck if it kills her, and crawls back into the tent.

Gabe's eyes are open and she can hear him muttering something under his breath. She looks down into his face and bleary eyes focus on her, really look at her for the first time in days. Her heart swells with sheer joy.

"Gabe! You see me!" she cries, so loudly that Lee pushes into the tent fearing the worst. Gabe stares from Missy to Lee, eyes wandering from each face back to the other, slowly, suspiciously.

"He looks like he don't know us, Missy," Lee notes uneasily. "That don't make sense."

Missy snorts. "He's just confuzzled."

Lee makes doubtful huffing noises as he shuffles himself back outside on all-fours, and Gabe's eyes track Missy as she wriggles up beside him, stew pot in hand. "Time you eat, Gabe," she bosses, maneuvering herself under him so she can raise him up onto her lap. "You ain't been eatin' properly since you got hurt and you need to heal."

Gabe bats at the spoon, irritated, but Missy persists, and he slowly chews and swallows down the warmth. "Wha… hrt… me…" he slurs between mouthfuls.

"Wolf," Missy says, easing more food in between his lips. "This is timber wolf country, Gabe, you know that. But you was lucky this time, real lucky your brother caught up to you. Lee fought that thing off you, saved you."

He sighs deeply, his eyelids drifting closed. "I was talking about wolves to him," he slurs. "Right before it got me."

Sam hasn't said a word all the way back, and he eats in silence as Hudak makes up a bed for him on her couch. After she clears away the plates she ferrets about in the pantry, produces a quart bottle of Jack and a couple of shot glasses.

She pours them each a couple of fingers, downs hers in one, refills, and breaks the ice. "My brother Riley was five years older than me," she starts. "Right up until the day he disappeared, I never had a single argument with him. Not that we always agreed, or anything. He was just so easy going he never stayed angry and no one ever stayed angry with him." She nods to herself, sips her Jack. "He used to walk me to school," she starts, and then she laughs, not sadly but in genuine amusement. "And as soon as we'd get off the main road I'd say to him, _let's skip_. And he'd do it, he'd hold my hand and skip along with me, and I'd sing skip to my lou. He must've been in his early teens then."

She pauses, and when Sam glances up he sees that she's wiping away tears even as she smiles at him.

"Years afterwards, whenever I reminded him about that he totally denied it."

Sam drinks his shot. "Dean and me…" he broaches, without even really meaning to. "Like I said, we fended for ourselves. Or he fended for us. My dad would disappear for weeks, leave us at a motel room somewhere, with fifty bucks for food. Dean would haul me out of bed and take me to the school bus, meet me at the stop after school. He'd threaten me until I did my homework, cook for me… and I can remember, God, I can remember him going hungry so I could eat. I didn't really know it then, but he'd give me the last of everything."

And Sam remembers other things too, like the money running out and Dean going out at night after making Sam cross his heart and hope to die if he opened the motel room door to anyone else. And then much later he'd sneak back in, and Sam would pretend to be asleep while his brother crawled into his bed and wept quietly. The next morning they would have money again, and Sam has never wanted to think about what Dean might have done to get that roll of bills.

"Your dad…" Hudak intrudes on his thoughts. "He had demons then? From when your mom died?"

It's so outrageously on the mark Sam almost laughs out loud. "Yeah, you could say that. But – he had his reasons."

Sam has always wondered if his dad ever realized how much he'd laid on Dean's narrow shoulders back then. The endless military-style drills and discipline… had it been his dad's way of imbuing them with skills that would – and had, countless times – save their lives? Or had it all been a device to absolve him of the guilt of effectively abandoning his sons whenever a fugly beckoned, simply because he knew Dean could deal?

"We lived over near Kelly lake when we were kids," says Hudak. "My dad taught us to swim by sailing us out off the jetty, about a hundred yards, and tipping us in. God we thought he was such a bastard at the time, Riley even told him he'd call the cops. But we both could swim like fish after a few weeks."

Sam smiles. "I'll see your lake and raise you badlands."

"Hit me with it," she says.

"My dad had an old hunting buddy in South Dakota… he was like a second parent, really," he continues. _Second only to Dean_ , he thinks, briefly. "We'd stay there off and on when we were kids. Dad would drive us out miles into the badlands, throw us out of the car with a compass, a canteen and some biscuits, and leave us to find our own way back. Dean always did. Sometimes it took a couple of days but he always seemed to know what to do, where to go. It was instinctive—"

And then Sam stops. Suddenly he knows what this is. He knows what it means, to be thinking about Dean in the past tense. "I think my brother is dead," he says, with no inflection, no emotion.

Hudak fills his glass again and they drink to Dean, and to Riley Hudak. And Sam thinks how surreal it is to be holding a wake for his brother when Dean was always so full of life.

Sometime during the day, Gabe rouses from a bad dream crying out for Sam, and Missy frowns. They don't know a Sam. And then, once Gabe is more awake, he asks where their dad is. So Missy tells him their Pa is dead, and he died brave, fighting for them, killing bad monsters so they could live.

Gabe's eyes open wide, his breath catches, and tears stream from his eyes until he weeps himself back to sleep.

**7\. Exit Light, Enter Night**

He loses himself in fever dreams about hunting alongside his father and brother, dreams where every move is perfectly choreographed, where expression and gesture take the place of words, where they slash, feint, duck and weave in unison, where the rush of the kill is exhilarating, intoxicating. He exults in his ruthlessness, his coldblooded thirst to annihilate, obliterate, exterminate, _destroy_. Saving people, hunting things… the family business.

And his family means everything to him, his father and brother are his reason, his life, his breath, his heart's desire. Without them he will cease to be, fade away. For they are the best part of him and if he loses them nothing of him can survive, his existence will be pointless, his whole being will atrophy, collapse in on itself, and it will be like he never was.

Gabe comes round in fits and starts, at turns whispering and running off at the mouth, yelling the kinds of things that Pa would have whupped him good for, thinks Lee. _Fucktard?_ Lee doesn't even want to think what that might be, and Missy looks black affronted at Gabe's new turn of phrase. She kneels down next to him, grasps his shoulder and gives him a shake, tells him to _stop yammerin'_ , you're scarin' your brother.

Gabe hits out with his good fist and knocks Missy onto her butt in the snow, and Lee honestly thinks it'd be funny if his sister didn't sit up with a face like thunder. The noise as she slaps Gabe's cheek echoes around the clearing like a pistol shot, and it's the widest open Lee has seen his brother's eyes since they started out.

"Wh… th… fuck…?" Gabe sputters weakly, and Missy whacks him again, leaving a bloody trail streaking from his lip.

Lee winces in sympathy, having been at the receiving end of his sister's right hand too many times to count. Any remaining color abruptly leaches from Gabe's already washed-out face, and he starts coughing wetly, his uninjured hand fluttering to his chest and pressing there in an attempt to control his spasms.

"Nuh… nuh... feel… gd…" he slurs, staring at Lee with panic-stricken eyes that Lee could swear are trying to tell him something, maybe asking for something – asking for Lee to do something? Lee stares back, doesn't know what to do, unconsciously reaches out his hands, palms up, helpless, mouths, _she's the boss!_

"You watch your mouth, boy!" Missy growls, and Lee thinks that if she ain't a holy terror when she's mad, then he don't know what is. "You need your medicine," she decides, and reaches for Pa's bag.

In between coughs, Gabe eyes her angrily as she drops a couple of gaudily colored pills into a cup of water and uses a spoon to grind them to a powder that dissolves into nothing. He keeps his lips firmly pressed together as Missy holds the cup up to his mouth, until she snaps at Lee, "Lee, take that stick and give Gabe here a tap on the leg."

Lee gapes, stammers out, "Buh-buh-but Missy, that's just mean."

So Missy reaches over and grabs the stick herself, rewards her brother with a vicious blow to his bloodsoaked bandage.

Gabe opens his mouth in a howl of mixed agony and protest that turns into a paroxysm of choking as Missy upends the cup of medicated water between his lips. Once done, she leaves him where he falls and in a series of tiny, clearly painful shifts in position, he curls in on himself, trembling, his injured arm tucked protectively into his chest and the other arm stretched out to his right, along the ground, his fingers twitching uncontrollably. His breath puffs out in brief, wheezing pants interrupted only by progressively weaker coughs. His eyes still stare at Lee but Lee doesn't think they really see him – they're empty eyes, empty like all the staring dead eyes he's ever seen.

"You can sleep outside until you learn some manners," Missy announces, crawling into the tent.

The bar is quiet, still smoky although it's past closing time. Hudak catches Joe's eye as she walks in, and he points over to a corner booth.

Sam is draped across the table, alongside an assortment of bottles and glasses of all shapes and sizes, and Hudak gives a low whistle as she pulls to a halt. "Beer, vodka, wine, whiskey… _rum_? All the major food groups… Jesus, Sam." Good job he's been walking here, she thinks. There's just no way he'd have driven back to her place the last few nights without wrapping his brother's car around a tree.

The barkeep approaches. "Third time this week," he comments. "You need a hand getting him out to the car?"

Between them they manage to drag Sam out to where Hudak has parked the Impala and they fold him clumsily into the passenger seat, where he flops against the door and starts snoring. _As if he's used to it_ , Hudak thinks, as she peels out of the parking lot and back up through town. The boat-like vehicle barely fits in the garage but the nights are still cold and since there's no way she can haul Sam as far as the couch, she doesn't want to leave him freezing out on the driveway.

She treks into the house and back out to the garage with a quilt, covers him, leaves the garage light on. Then she channel surfs her way to one of her brother's favorite movies and slowly dozes off as John Wayne rides across the endless snowbound prairie, searching for his long-lost niece.

The one good thing about the biting cold is that it numbs the pain, he thinks, vaguely. The fire still glows a few feet away but any warmth it was sending his way has long since gone and the thin blanket Lee tucked around him before he crawled into the tent, with a quick backward glance of apology, isn't much protection.

He watches the dog, lying up close to the fire. For some reason it unnerves him. As if it knows he's focusing on it, it raises its head from its paws, looks right at him. He holds his breath, closes his eyes… _it won't see me if I close my eyes_. He can remember how when they were small he and his brother would play hide-and-seek, and his brother would abruptly sit down wherever he was and cover his eyes, full sure it turned him invisible. But although the memory seems clear as day, it doesn't make sense, because in his head it's his kid brother sitting there, and Lee's a good few years older, though for the life of him he can't remember how old.

He knows he hit his head bad in the wolf attack, his creeping, shaking hand has felt a dry, caked-on mess in his hair that he thinks must be blood, so he guesses his brain is all shook up. And it smarts with a dull, confusing ache that makes his thoughts labored and spoken words crawl at a snail's pace from his lips. He thinks his arm is broken. He tries to move his fingers and flowers of agony blossom in bright red and orange. He looks at the dog again and winces as lurid, split-second images of slavering jaws beam in front of his eyes in wobbly, hand-held camera newsflashes.

The dog is staring at him. It's as if it can read his mind, like they're telepathically connected somehow, the way it looks at him… as if it knows him like nothing and no one else does, a knowledge born of some profound shared experience. And he knows it means he's losing it, totally losing it if he's thinking this way, because it's the kind of _emo crap_ his brother bleats on about all the time.

The dog gets up, moves in his direction. He freezes, holds his breath, feeling like his heart might judder to a dead stop in his fear. In the back of his mind, the portion that isn't fried, he doesn't comprehend why he should be so afraid of the family mutt.

It sniffs him, nudges him. It lies down next to him.

He can't hold on any longer, his vision is graying out. He has to start breathing again, in tiny, whistling huffs, and he's so desperately afraid that he knows damn well he's making barely discernible squeaks of sheer terror.

The dog doesn't react. Its body is solid against his, warm. A warmth he craves in the freezing cold.

By gradual increments he wriggles up against it, swallowing down his rising panic as he becomes ever more aware of its bulk, its rock hard muscle. He gingerly raises his arm, trying not to jar the injury or pull any more than Missy already has at his shoulder as she hauls him this way and that, trying to get him fed. He places his arm across the dog. It remains perfectly still.

"Good dog," he whispers timidly.

Hudak is jolted awake at oh-dark-thirty by the noise of Sam regurgitating copious amounts of booze, along with the lining of his stomach, or so it sounds, into the sink in her garage. The horse opera has long finished, to be replaced by Hannibal Lecter menacing Clarice Starling. Not appropriate for her present state of mind nor Sam's, so she switches it off.

Sam stumbles in from the garage right then, groaning, hair in disarray. He looks at her and squints, as if he's seeing double, before collapsing on the couch.

Hudak rolls her eyes, pushes up and pads to the kitchen to fetch aspirin, a glass of water, and a separate plastic bottle of water, which she parks beside the couch. "Drink that – it'll dilute the alcohol."

Sam mutters an expletive as he sits up, knocks back the aspirin. He slumps back on the couch.

"Something to eat?" Hudak asks him.

"God, no," Sam groans. "Even thinking about food makes me want to puke again."

There's a newspaper nearby and Hudak leans over to snag it, arranges the paper sheets across the floor around Sam's feet and he cracks an eye open.

"What am I doing…?" he drags out, suddenly leaning forward and resting his head in his hands.

Hudak considers it for a moment. "It's normal to deny the reality of loss in the first—"

Sam snorts, raises an eyebrow. "The seven stages of grief?" he says, with not a little sarcasm.

"Well…" she pauses, shrugs. "I have been through this."

His face falls and he heaves out a sigh. "I know… I know. I'm sorry. I—I have no excuse."

Hudak cocks her head. "You do," she tells him mildly. "You have every excuse. You don't have to explain yourself or defend yourself to me, Sam. If this helps you, then I'm here to scrape you up afterwards." She lets the silent but at the end hang there for a minute or two. "But does it help you?"

He doesn't even have to answer her, because she knows it doesn't help, even if it numbs it all for a few blessed hours.

"I don't know what to do," Sam says. "I feel… I feel like I should be still out there looking. I feel guilty that I folded. I gave up. And I don't know why. Dean wouldn't give up."

Hudak stands and lowers herself down to sit next to him, knee to knee. She knows this, the need to do something, so you can sleep at night telling yourself that you tried. "We can go back out, start looking again," she says. "The forecast is for better weather day after tomorrow."

Sam slants his eyes sideways, and his look is steady. "What do you think the odds are? I mean, really?"

She wants to offer the kid some comfort but even so, she's brutally honest. "Slim to none, Sam. But as long as you want to keep looking, we'll keep looking."

He ponders for a minute. "How long did you keep looking for your brother?"

Hudak smiles at the hurt that will never go away. "I'll always be looking, Sam. Some small part of me will always hope to find him."

It's quiet in the tent and Missy sleeps deeply, untroubled by dreams.

Lee lies awake, worrying about Gabe, and eventually he gives in and worms his way as surreptitiously as he can out from under the sleeping bag and through the tent flap. He sneaks over to where Gabe and the dog are curled up together under the tree, motions to the dog to lie still as he feeds the fire with logs and puts water on to boil. Gabe's face, lit up by the fire, is infinitely sad in repose and Lee stops for a second, feels real bad for his brother, and thinks he might never have seen anything so beautiful as him fast asleep and peaceful like that.

He potters about, brewing coffee, and before long he knows he's being watched.

The dog slumbers, twitching every now and then, but Gabe is staring at him through bleary eyes, utterly still, his peace overcome by the exhaustion that clouds his face now he's awake.

Lee pours coffee, sits down there next to him. "You want some coffee, Gabe? Warm you up inside?

Gabe's eyes light up. "Caffeine…" he murmurs.

Lee takes it as a yes, shifts round so he has a leg either side of his brother, and gently eases him upright against his chest. He holds the cup to Gabe's lips and offers small sips his brother gulps greedily, and it occurs to Lee that the last few times his brother has drunk anything it's been nothing more than a couple of mouthfuls of dribbled-in water to wash down his medicine. Maybe they haven't been taking such good care of Gabe as he thought.

"Is our dad really dead?" Gabe asks suddenly, hesitantly.

Lee nods behind him. "He sure is, Gabe. But Pa died brave. He died fightin', fightin' monsters that don't like how we live our life."

He can feel his brother's shoulders start to shake, hear muffled sobs, and Lee hugs him close. "Now Gabe, don't you cry, boy," he says. "You still got me! You still got your brother! Nothin's ever gonna get you while I'm here. You got that?"

Gabe doesn't reply, doesn't even seem to hear him, just weeps quietly. And even with him and the dog there, Lee gets a sense that Gabe feels alone. He lays his cheek on his brother's filthy, blood-spiked hair. "I'm here, Gabe," he says, and kisses the top of his head.

Beside them, the dog jerks in sleep, growling, its tail thumping, its legs twitching, and Lee feels Gabe tense up like a coiled spring. "It's okay, Gabe, dog's just havin' a dream, ain't he?" Lee soothes. "He's dreamin' about… rabbits!" And Lee plucks a random memory from his childhood. "Giant man-eating rabbits! That's what it is! He sees them runnin' up over the hill and he wants to hunt them bunnies down, that's what it is!"

Lee feels Gabe slump back against him again, into the warmth. "I saw that movie…" Gabe whispers. "Me and you… we saw that movie… fuckin' rabbits… I hate 'em…"

The next day Sam drives the Impala out to the Bender place, stops in the approximate spot where he and Dean had rested, oh so briefly. He can see the gap where they crashed into the woods, and he follows the trail of broken branches all the way to the ridge where they belly flopped into the water. He walks along the riverbank, eyes all the time searching, searching for signs. He comes to a place he thinks he recognizes, sits down heavily.

It's incredibly peaceful, the rush of the water soothing, sunbeams dancing on the river's surface, and Sam shivers to think of the violence that took place here. And all of a sudden the sunlight is bleak, the gurgling of the river taunts him, and the trees loom menacingly. It's as if the place is haunted by that violence, haunted by his brother's suffering and terror. Sam stares around wildly, sees brownish spatters on the smooth rocks.

He scrambles back upright and runs.

When he gets back to Hudak's house, he calls the Dean at Stanford.

**8\. The Nature of the Beast**

It's the jars of teeth that really get to her every time she thinks about it, even though there are worse things scattered about the Bender house according to the FBI report: the human equivalent of elephant-foot trashcans, giraffe-leg lampstands, zebra-tail light pulls, gorilla-hand ashtrays.

No, it's the teeth, all eight hundred and twenty two of them. Hudak does the math: average of thirty two teeth per mouth, so eight hundred and twenty two divided by thirty two makes… twenty five point something people hunted to death out there. But what the heck would they keep the teeth for? What does that go to in their psyche, their make-up, their _nature_? It's… animalistic. Primeval.

Her alarm blares and she flails about on the nightstand to switch it off, debates whether to just turn over and go back to sleep, stretches, throws off the covers, pulls them back up. Throws them off again, switches on the lamp, because she made a promise.

A picture of her brother smiles at her from the nightstand, a perfect white-toothed smile. Hudak feels a wave of nausea rise, stumbles to the bathroom and leans over the sink, taking deep breaths, holding it down, her grip on the ceramic white-knuckled.

Not thinking of teeth or how they might have removed them.

Not thinking about Dean Winchester's megawatt smile.

Not thinking about her brother.

Missy nudges Lee's foot with hers to wake him and he yawns as he raises his head from off the top of his brother's, wipes away drool from the side of his cheek and scurfs it from off Gabe's hair. He wrinkles his nose in disgust.

"He smells real bad."

Gabe is out of it, and Lee carefully shimmies out from behind him, laying him back on the blanket. "Think we should clean him up some?" he inquires, as Missy pokes through the supplies. "We got soap now. And there's some clothes in those folks' bags we can use. His ain't fit for much."

Missy pulls the blanket aside, studies Gabe. His hair is clogged with mud and old, black blood that extends down one cheek, and splotches of blood spatter the rest of his face too. Lee's baggy sweater conceals the shredded sleeve of his shirt and the grubby bandage that holds his splint in place. His fingers and fingernails, peeking out from the cuffs of the too-long sweater, are thick with grime. The jeans take the prize, though, stained from mid-thigh down with dried-in blood and from mid-thigh up with urine and worse, as Missy knows full well from countless hunts where blubbering long-pigs lost all control as the dogs took them down. The bandage is about all that's holding the denim together, hastily applied over the fabric.

Missy nods decisively. "After we eat, Gabe takes a bath."

"Rise and shine!"

It's hollered right in his ear, and the little bitch cackles as Gabe about jumps out of his skin. He starts to yelp something and then remembers her hand and thinks better of it, glowers up at her instead.

"Sleep well?" she asks, sweetly.

Cautiously, inch by inch, Gabe levers himself up on his good arm. He tells himself that his leg maybe doesn't throb quite as much as it did and that as long as he favors his arm and doesn't jar his shoulder, the pain is just about bearable. And suddenly Lee is right there behind him, supporting him and easing him up against the tree.

The world spins for a few minutes, and Gabe finds it hard to catch his breath. He was overly optimistic, he thinks, as his leg, protesting at the movement, sends out scorching distress signals that sear every nerve ending with thrilling agony. He wheezes through it, good hand fisting the dirt, feels his chest tighten and clench with the onset of the inevitable coughing spasm. He breaks out in a cold sweat that's distinctly at odds with the heat he can feel radiating from his body, and Lee seems to senses his anxiety, rubs circles on Gabe's back as he leans forward trying to fill his lungs through the hacking wet coughs, _Jesus, can't breathe, can't breathe_ , tears leaking out of his eyes, phlegm thick in his mouth, his panic skyrocketing.

Missy squats next to him, a hand on either side of his face, yells, "Look at me! Look at me! Quit it now! _Now_!"

As Gabe drowns in her glare it gets fractionally easier, a little more air reaches his screaming lungs with every hard-fought breath. _Tough fuckin' love_ he thinks. Always has been, all his life since Mom died.

Missy sends a satisfied smirk his way, stands and picks her way back to stir whatever she has cooking in the pot, while Lee helps Gabe lean back again.

"Fuckin' bitch," Gabe dares under his breath, and Lee's jaw drops in what looks like part-horror, part-awe, his eyes darting over to the girls where she squats on her haunches. Gabe senses his disapproval and shrugs. "Well, she is," he mutters between labored breaths.

And then she's marching over again, her grin huge, her mood the polar opposite of five minutes earlier, as she snuggles up close with the can of warm stew. "We need to get your strength up, Gabe," she announces, stirring the glop vigorously before offering him a steaming spoonful.

Gabe examines it, brownish chunks of some generic meat in sludge that must pass for sauce in whatever kitchen Missy learned her cooking skills, and he can't help the grimace that scrunches up his face.

"S'good," she says, encouragingly, but for some reason Gabe just doesn't want to eat it. Not because he isn't hungry – even thinking of the word has his stomach growling. Just… something maybe _not right_ about it, something he can't remember just now.

Missy huffs, dumps the spoon back in the can and wedges it down between his thighs. "Ain't really got time to feed you anyhoo, Gabe," she says, her attention drifting off to the mess scattered about their campsite. "We need to get movin' once we get you cleaned up…"

She sits back down near the fire, starts eating her own food.

Lee's about done with his and he's licking his fingers enthusiastically. He catches Gabe's eye, nods. "S'good," he echoes Missy.

Gabe looks down into the can. He's hungry. He shovels a spoonful of the warm stew in, eats it mechanically, chewing it slowly, having to force it down. It's not bad. But it's not good either. He just doesn't understand why.

After a couple of mouthfuls, he sets the can down on the dirt and the dog looks up from where it's lying, ears pricked, eyes alert. Gabe pushes the can over towards its massive head and it clears out the leftovers in less than a minute. He considers the mutt as it licks its chops and yawns, shudders involuntarily at the flash of gleaming white fangs. And something occurs to him. "What's our dog's name?" he inquires.

Lee shrugs. "Don't really have one. Just… _Dog_ , I guess."

Gabe frowns, because something about that doesn't make sense, some memory of the din of barking, of racing through woods black as night. "What was the other dog's name?" he presses. "The one that drowned?"

Missy's tone is sharp. "You 'member that? That other dog?"

She seems bothered by it and Gabe's hand rises unconsciously to rub his cheek, his eyes flicking back and forth from her to Lee, who shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

"Uh… I thought there were two dogs… they both called Dog?" Gabe says, more cautiously now. "Same name… don't make sense."

Missy's stare is fixed and cold.

"I dunno… " Gabe whispers. "Maybe I'm confused. I, uh. Hit my head."

The gleam of her sharp yellow teeth is a relief. "Yup, you sure did, Gabe. But the doctor gave us medicine for that, and to help your leg get better." She digs in her pocket, produces a couple of bottles of pills from her pocket, pours him some water.

Gabe takes the pills without complaint. He wants to get better.

He reclines against his tree, watches Lee and Missy start to collapse the tent, clear away belongings into the cart. A feeling of comforting lassitude starts creeping up his body. The pain is receding, muffled by the drugs. He's with his family and family is all, his dad used to say. He feels at ease.

The dog lies next to him, and Gabe runs his good hand up and down its back, lazily rubbing and scratching its short, dense fur. "Sam…" he slurs contentedly. "That's your name now. Sammy."

They packed more supplies, Hudak expecting it to be a couple of nights this time. They're deep into the woods now, as far north as they've ever been. Sam's realistic, knows that this will likely be their last pass, and he says as much. 

"The fact he's hurt will slow them down," Hudak replies. "I can't see them having gotten as far as the lakes yet… but you're right. If we don't find any signs this time we'll drive up north, start working our way back, maybe cut them off instead of chase them all the time."

She seems more bullish than him today, and for the umpteenth time Sam loses himself in guilt-ridden examination of just why it is he doesn't hold out much hope of finding his brother. He knows damn well that if it were the other way round Dean wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, would tear down every obstacle in his path, would sacrifice whatever he had to, to get to him. He wonders if it's as simple as his force-of-nature brother compared to him: sensible, analytical, logical… adding the savage attack to the doctor's description of the leg injury and the blood in the truck bed, multiplying them by the number of days that have passed to come up with his conclusion. Dean, glass half full, would have taken the blood smeared all over the truck as a sign his brother's heart still beat, pumping that blood. But he, Sam, glass half empty… all he can see is his brother slowly weakening as he bleeds out.

"It's been almost a week," he starts.

"Yes it has," Hudak says, noncommittally.

"I called Stanford. Spoke to the Dean."

Hudak asks him the sixty four thousand dollar question. "Do you want to stop looking, Sam?"

Up close and personal like that, the question has Sam floundering even though he's been thinking about it. "No… I… don't know. I don't know what to do." _Giving up. Letting go_. Sam doesn't want to be ten years down the line and still hiking these woods. But he doesn't want to be ten years down the line wondering if he did the right thing either.

Hudak is startlingly astute when she interrupts his train of thought. "You feel guilty about stopping. You don't want to be thinking _what if_ for the rest of your life."

"He wouldn't give up if it were me," Sam mutters. "Not ever. He'd never stop looking."

She clears her throat. "But he might be wasting his life, given the evidence. Would you want him doing that?"

Sam doesn't even have to consider it. "God, no." The thought of Dean living some kind of half-life, existing in a permanent state of mourning for a lost Sam, endlessly, hopelessly searching, is like a knife to the gut.

He looks over at Hudak, remembers what she said about how she never stopped looking, still hoped. He thinks now that he can see it in her weary face, her air of sadness, her solitary life, maybe even in her dedication to this search for his brother that defies all logic and sense. And Sam wonders for the first time who she's really searching for.

"What do you think Dean would want for you, Sam?" she says, her voice soft.

Sam knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt. He knows because of all those years when Dean as brother became impossibly intertwined with Dean as _father_ , the one who raised Sam, guided him, taught him, protected him. Only ever wanted the best for him, and stood and watched him walk away from it all to follow his dream, even as it sent his own dream of family up in flames. He knows what Dean would want for him – and because of that, he knows what he's going to do.

He sets his jaw, makes his decision. "He'd want me to live for him."

Hudak looks at him for a long moment. "We'll grab a bite to eat and head back to town," she says.

They decide the best way to clean up Gabe is to just cart him down to the river and dunk him in it, so Lee gathers him up in his arms while Missy leads the way, armed with soap, an empty can, and piles of clothing. She feels cheerful because Gabe's in a good mood, smiling dreamily. Even his leg and arm don't seem to be hurting him quite as much.

"Seems like Gabe here's feelin' better," Lee says, as they lay him down at the water's edge and start maneuvering him out of his clothes, and Missy smirks.

"Those red pills sure are happy pills, Lee."

Her brother pulls a face. "Don't you forget Missy, some of them pills are mine. That's what Mikey said."

Missy starts unlacing Gabe's boots as Lee carefully extricates him from his shirt. "Lee, I think you're all better now," she says, thoughtfully. "I don't think you'll be needin' those pills, and Gabe's been real sick. I think Gabe needs happy time more 'n' you right now. So no more gripin' 'bout the pills."

"Well. Okay. But I'm not real pleased about it, Missy," Lee pouts. He rests back on his heels, and Missy watches his eyes range interestedly up and down their brother's torso. "This boy's a fine-lookin' piece of meat," he decides, and he pokes at Gabe's ribs with a finger before scratching at his own stomach. "How do you think he gets his belly to look all ridged like that?"

Missy ignores the question, unpeels the bandages from Gabe's leg and arm, decides she'll leave the splint on. She tugs off his socks, winces at the smell of unwashed feet, hauls down his tattered jeans. The cauterized wound is puckered, barely healed red tears and gouges, surrounded by puffy, melted skin and greenish-yellow bruises that meander up her brother's thigh and disappear under his shorts. Gabe yelps as she gives the area an experimental poke or three to see if the bleeding starts up again. The pain, along with the chill air on his bare skin, seems to wake him from his fog and he starts growing agitated.

"Wh-wh-whuh… what're you d-d-doin'? What's this?"

He brushes Missy's hand away, but she's already moving to lift his feet and tuck them under her arms. "Let's git her done, Lee."

Nodding, Lee hauls Gabe up by the shoulders despite his protests, and they carry him two or three feet into the river and lay him down. The cold bites savagely into Missy's calves, and she thinks it's no wonder Gabe cries out in shock. She puts it out of her mind, lathers up soap bubbles and starts scrubbing at his feet while he scuffs and kicks at her.

"Calm down, boy, we's just cleanin' you up some," Lee reassures in his ear, but Gabe fights like a trapped animal, keeps up a running, breathless _no-no-no-no_.

He's still too weak for his thrashing to have much chance against Lee's bulk, and Missy rubs away at his cold, pale skin, his hair too, before she takes a deep breath, looks Lee in the eye.

"I can get down there for you if you like?" he says quickly.

Missy stares hard at him for a minute, then purses her lips. "No. I'll do it."

She reaches around Gabe's submerged hips, pulls, tugs, throws the dripping wet shorts up onto the riverbank. She soaps up her hands, reaches down and under, rubs at parts she knows are dirty, parts her Pa would skin her alive for touching. She can feel her cheeks heat up to scorching hot, as Gabe's eyes widen. His struggle momentarily stops, then starts up again more frantically than before while he lets rip a stream of cusswords that make Missy's face flush even pinker.

"He's ready," she snaps, and she takes her place at Gabe's feet again as Lee drags him back out onto the river bank.

They lay him on a blanket, and Missy starts rubbing him off with the clothes before easing the clean shorts up over his hips, studiously averting her eyes. That all-important task taken care of, she and Lee work together to pull an assortment of clothing on their exhausted, shivering brother, as his teeth chatter uncontrollably and he rubs at soap-stung, tear-filled eyes. Missy finishes up by puling Lee's giant sweater over Gabe's head again.

"All done," Lee smiles. "This boy sure cleans up purty."

They don't talk much as they meander through the trees back in the direction they came, more or less, Nancy Reagan darting off deeper into the woods every few moments to chase down sounds and smells.

It's so peaceful that the noise of baying from just off to the right is a shock to Sam. In fact, it's the first time the hound has bayed since the first time they danced this dance, when it led them to the blood-soaked truck, and Sam doesn't want to get his hopes up and believe it could possibly be a sign, an omen.

They speed up, emerging from the trees into a small clearing. It's clear someone has camped there – Sam sees a circle of ashes and blackened embers dead center, a couple of opened cans lying just to the side of it.

Hudak gingerly touches the tip of her finger to the ashes. "Cold. Whoever was here is long gone."

"Do you think…?" Sam sees that she's looking over his shoulder, down at the ground, and he turns as she tracks past him, squats and peers at the soil. She points.

"Blood. Soaked into the soil there."

Sam brings a shaking hand up to his mouth.

"It might not mean anything," Hudak adds quickly. "It could be hunters."

From behind them, the hound whines and they both turn to look at the same time. It's sniffing and pawing at something over near a tree stump at the other side of the clearing, sticking its nose in the undergrowth and huffing mightily as it tugs on its discovery.

They stride over, and kneel, Hudak grasping whatever it is – _rags_? It's fabric of some kind, grayish, stained with brown, and there are more, larger pieces, darker. Hudak pokes through it with a stick, hooks one end of the pile up off the ground, murmurs, "What is that?"

And Sam suddenly knows, because he's seen precisely that combination of fabric more times than he's ever wanted to. "It's bandages," he says slowly. "And those are my brother's jeans."

The dog is off in the woods, crashing about in there, barking furiously, and Hudak gets up and makes her way into the trees as Sam stares at the bloodstained remnants.

And then it catches his eye, a glint of something in the vegetation, the miniscule split-second sparkle as sun bounces off something metal laying there in the dirt. Sam leans across the bloody clothing, reaches in with long fingers, grasps it, holds it up, finds himself stares into the impassive bronze face he knows so well, the broken cord trailing down.

Hudak staggers out from between the trees, her face white, her eyes staring wildly, brings her hand up to her mouth, falls to her knees, retches violently.

Sam stands up mechanically, moves to detour around her, and she leaps up, mid-heave, her hand flying out to spin him around.

"Leave it," she orders him, pausing to spit, wipe her mouth. "Leave it Sam, just leave it."

She's rooting out her cell, cursing as she holds it up to get a signal. "We need help out here," she goes on urgently. "I have to call this in. But please, just sit here with me now and don't go back there. Please trust me on this, Sam. Don't go back there."

And Sam gently but firmly looses her hand from his sleeve, keeps walking back to where the hound is snuffling about and barking its excitement, tugging at something half-buried in the loose earth, something part-clad in denim but too small to be a body, a body part, no boot, tatters of flesh, gleaming, bloody bone.

Sam doesn't understand at first.

And then suddenly he does, and it all turns black.

**9\. A Glimpse Beyond This Illusion**

Within two hours of Hudak's call, the woods are swarming with local deputies, and a couple of FBI suits from the field office in Duluth have _penciled her in_ for a debrief back in Hibbing when they hit town. She needs a shower, a drink and some sort of memory-zapping laser beam to the brain, _stat_ , to put all of this behind her, because for as long as she lives she never wants to revisit this day.

She lost sight of Sam in the melee: has no idea where he is. She feels responsible for him, wants to be there for him. But doesn't want to be.

In fact, she never wants to see him again, never wants to have to mouth the usual platitudes. Never wants to have to look into his eyes and see that expression of all hope finally lost, of Sam Winchester finally lost. Wants to just close this out now and move on to the new place. Because it's a clusterfuck, is what it is. For the official record, Dean Winchester was deceased before he even arrived in Hibbing. For the official record, it can't be his leg forensics are drooling over, it's a generic leg, an orphan leg.

For the official record, Dean and Sam Winchester were never here.

So when Matty Paulson tells Hudak he saw her cousin catch a ride back into Hibbing with Clay Nordstrom, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders. Time to regroup before picking up the pieces. And when she finally catches her own ride back just ahead of dawn, and finds Sam, his gear, and his car gone, she doesn't know whether she feels regret or relief.

Two days later Hudak gets away from it all, takes some personal time she's owed because she damn well deserves it. She flies down to the Florida Keys for ten days, marvels at the sun and the heat, ponders the wisdom of freezing her ass off above the Mason Dixon line when she could be broiling away her days at the beach.

They move on every day, further and further into the woods.

Gabe finds that he's able to shuffle around their campsites now, albeit painfully, once Lee helps him down from the back of the cart. But the leg has an irritating habit of abruptly giving way under him every so often, and when that happens he lies where he falls, panting away the pain for a half-hour at a time, while Missy steps over him. He has trained himself to twist in mid-air when it happens, so his back bears the brunt of it as he falls to earth, the one time he crashed onto his splinted wrist being one time too many and sending him back to his blanket where he shivered in agony all night.

And standing on his hindlegs is what he's doing right now, rubbing his thigh as the damaged skin and muscle scream their protest, tears welling up from the blistering pain, cussing under his breath despite the black looks Missy is throwing his way.

"We don't cuss," she warns. "We's Godfearing folk, Gabe, and if Pa heard you cussin' like that, he'd have your hide."

"Yeah, well fuck Dad and the horse he rode in on," Gabe says dryly, not really caring that he's speaking ill of the dead because he just can't think of his dad in those terms. And also not really caring that Missy is likely to kick his bad leg out from under him, or worse, whack it with a stick, and have him begging for mercy at any minute. "Anyway, Dad cussed all the time. I learned cussin' from Dad. He was the past fuckin' master of cussin', he wrote the fuckin' book on it."

Gabe slashes at thin air with his good hand to ram home his point, eases himself to the ground, lathers up his rapidly diminishing bar of soap in the bowl of hot water Missy has set down for him and shaves as accurately as he can with a Bowie and no mirror. Missy isn't best pleased with him, he can tell, even though he's been taking his medicine every morning and not complaining about it even once. She keeps on at him to eat more, near bites his head off, in fact, with every half-full can of food he gives to the dog to finish. But he has no appetite, truth to tell, and even the few mouthfuls he eats have to be forced down.

Missy is unsettling him to be honest, one minute treating him as if he just stepped off a cloud complete with harp and halo, the next as if he's lower down the chain of command than the dog. Her spite takes his breath away and yet there are times when she sits so closely, stares so intensely, caresses so meaningfully, that it has him floundering for the right thing to say, to do, to think.

He can damn well do without her sheer malevolence, but when she swings the other way there's something disturbing underlying her zeal, something just… _wrong_. He can't figure what it is about her, about _him_ – she sure isn't like that with Lee – wonders if she has always been like this, can't really remember; finds his head is so befogged all the time that when he tries to really analyze why her behavior bewilders him he ends up mystified, stupefied and sometimes mortified when he thinks too hard on why she sometimes seems to devour him with her eyes, wraps herself around him so possessively in sleep. His inner voice is no help, seems to constantly mouth a stream of expletives in regard to Missy's fervor, to the extent that even Gabe is appalled at InnerGabe's foul tongue. He tries to sit closer to Lee, turns towards his brother in sleep, feeling somehow more easy with him, more relaxed, more natural. When he asks Lee about her, Lee just chuckles and says Missy sure does love her brothers.

And Gabe feels useless. He knows he should be out hunting with his brother. Lee has disappeared the last three afternoons and not been back until Gabe woke the next morning. His absence makes for little respite from Missy's diligent attention, although this morning when he woke even Missy was gone, leaving Sam to watch him. The sun was pretty high when they turned up, and Lee was jumpy, mean. He's been that way a couple of days now, tense, easily startled, snapping at Gabe and Missy for no reason. One time he even cuffed Missy straight down on to her ass. Gabe thinks it might be the first time he's ever seen her at a total loss.

Lee's staring into his coffee now, deep in thought and ignoring the bickering as Gabe carefully lowers himself down to sit opposite, kneading his torn-up leg hard with his right hand. He's feeling less cranky now, the familiar mild lethargy creeping up as the meds take hold, _hospital-grade, dude!_ , InnerGabe keeps crowing. _Sweet!_

"Tell me about the hunt, Lee?" Gabe says cautiously, not really knowing whether he'll get an easy grin or a scowl in return, more and more expecting the kind of slap around the head that knocked Missy flat. But Lee's in a good mood, eager to boast about his latest exploits in the field.

"Boy you shoulda been there, Gabe," he says, nodding his head with the gravity of it all. "That pig was just goin' about his business, he didn't have a clue. And I watched him real close, and I shadowed him and when he was least expectin' it there I was, had my gun aimed right between his eyes…"

Gabe shivers with delicious anticipation.

"And that pig, he stared right at me, Gabe. And I could tell he was jus' beggin' me, _let me go, mister! I been good! I ain't done nothin'!_ " Lee stops, his eyes alight, and he licks his lips, his tongue reptilian. "And there ain't nothin' like it, that feelin' of knowin' you hold the power over life and death. And I took that pig down right there where he stood. And I felt powerful alive. Powerful alive."

Gabe's hands, fisted with tension, slowly relax, and he breathes out. He knows that feeling. "I miss the hunt, Lee," he murmurs. "I should be out there hunting down those sonsofbitches, running them into the ground, putting them down. I miss it."

Lee nods, sympathetic. "Leg's gettin' better all the time, Gabe. Soon be takin' you out with me, boy. You'll get to hunt them pigs real soon now."

Gabe's mind races through all the hunts he's been on with his brother, a confusing jumble of images and emotions, seizes on one. "Like Blackwater Ridge," he recalls wistfully. "That time Dad sent us after that wendigo up there… jeez, that was some ride, and those woods… _fuck_. Woods like the fuckin' X-Files, like these woods. And man, that thing, it was _huge_ , and when it grabbed me and that Haley chick, I thought I was totally fuc—"

He flies backwards, the world spinning madly for a few seconds before he's hauled up by the scruff and his brother's massive fist clubs him to semi-consciousness with just one blow. Lee is screaming right into his face, shaking him until his teeth rattle.

"What the fuck you talkin' about, boy? _What the fuck you talkin' about?_ You and me never been on any hunt like that! You messin' with me? Messin' with my head?"

Gabe can see the blur of Missy racing up behind Lee, tugging hard at his jacket, screaming at him to _leave Gabe be, you're hurtin' him_ , and he's vaguely aware of the dog darting back and forth behind them, tail between its legs as it howls in misery. Lee takes Missy by the arm, swings her away and sends her flying to the ground, closes his other hand around Gabe's throat, so it's hard to breathe. Gabe starts to see stars, and Lee sinks his fist into his gut and gives him a kick in the groin for good measure once he crumples, before he stalks back to where his coffee waits.

"Mess with my head… That's whatcha get."

It's not so much the fire in Gabe's gut that keeps him down there with his face in the dirt as much as it is the sheer disbelief, the dumbfounded shock and total lack of comprehension as to why his brother should turn on him like that. Over and above the pain all he can think is _why? Why would you do that? You're my brother… why would you do that? I thought I mattered…_ Missy crabs over and tries to sit him up, rains kisses on his head and chants, _don't cry Gabe, don't cry_. And it's true: he is crying, and he scrubs angrily at his eyes.

The dog crawls up next to him and Gabe find himself grabbing hold of it for dear life, muttering its name like a mantra, _Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam-Sam_.

Lee drinks his coffee.

Hudak gets back to find the Bender manhunt is still on its backfoot. In fact, the Bender manhunt is slumped on the couch with its feet on the coffee table, nursing a beer and flipping idly through Sports Illustrated while it keeps one eye on the game.

Both Missy and Lee seemingly have vanished without trace and there's no record of old man Bender having owned any cabin up near the lakes. Swenson, not surprisingly, has gotten the hell out of Dodge, so no leads there either – and, natch, another mess for her because if Swenson's involvement ever does come under the microscope so will the little visit Sam Winchester, who was never there in the first place, paid the good doctor to ask about his brother. Who was dead at the time.

Four hikers have been reported missing while she was away.

And another FBI file is waiting on her desk.

 _No rest for the wicked_ , she thinks, and she pours herself a cup of coffee so strong she won't sleep for a week and starts reading. About the second set of remains found the day after she headed south, not too far from the generic orphan leg. Female, with belongings and identification close by. Kendall Lang, late of Minneapolis, twenty-eight, married, initial set of remains now believed to be Carson Lang, also of Minneapolis, thirty-one…

 _Jesus_.

Hudak's hands are shaking as she dials the number and races out a torrent of words to the tinny voice on the other end of the call. "Yes, I hope you can… I'm trying to contact a student of yours, a Sam Winchester? Well is it possible for you to leave a message asking him to call me… Deputy Kathleen Hudak, out of Hibbing, Minnesota… my badge number is – oh. He hasn't? Well, is he still registered? Then can you connect me to the Dean, please, it's a police matter…"

She rubs her forehead in despair. "Sam, Sam. Where the hell did you go?"

_This pig is real good_ , Lee thinks again, as he circles up behind it all stealthy like, and finds yet again that the pig ain't where it's supposed to be.

 _This pig is different_. He wonders if the pig knows it's being hunted, if maybe it's even trying to turn the tables on him and hunt him down. "Just try me, fuckin' pig," he breathes. "Try messin' with my head."

And so it's a fruitless hunt that leaves him unsated, jittery. He can't sit still once he gets back to camp but he tries to keep as quiet as he can, tries to avoid waking Missy and Gabe, who sleeps curled up in a ball, hand clutching his belly. In the firelight, Lee can see the side of Gabe's face sports a new blue-black bruise that extends up around his eye socket.

Lee sits, taps his feet, drums his fingers on his knees, endless motion he can't seem to control. He feels like his skin is crawling alive with energy, feels like he needs to howl at the moon. He decides he needs to rest instead, looks over at his brother, Missy up next to him in her usual spot. He stands up, picks his sleeping bag and blanket up off the ground, places them down next to his brother's, lies there next to him, staring at Gabe.

 _So purty_.

Lee is still at last, but only for a few minutes, because he starts to tremble and finds he's wringing his hands. "Gabe," he mutters softly. "I'm sorry, Gabe. I'm sorry."

No reply. His brother's breathing is the deep, leisurely breathing of the drugged.

 _Red pill breathing_.

Lee rolls over, curls himself around Gabe's smaller frame.

Engulfs him.

Missy inches her hands up from under her blankets, presses them tight over her ears. Blocks it out.

…There's a hand clamped over Gabe's mouth and nose and it muffles his frantic, trapped sounds.

He struggles but his limbs are like lead and he's swamped.

And he does the only thing he can: spirits himself away to another time and place, where he and his brother play tag, racing between decades-old wrecked cars stacked three and four high, wild laughter filling his ears…

You're real quiet, Gabe," Lee says. "You sleepin' right, boy?"

Missy looks up, real sharp, alert. Gabe ain't himself this morning. He moves slower, more stiffly, and his hands are still shaking even though his red pill should have calmed him down by now. His eyes, never as bright as when she first saw them, are even duller than they usually are once he starts to relax after his medicine. He doesn't rub his leg and bellyache like he always does once he's on the move; instead he rubs his hand along his brow, over and over, stares down at his boots, his expression vacant.

Lee leans over and pokes him. "Say, Gabe! Whatcha sittin' there all quiet for?"

Gabe looks up real slow, frowns like he's trying to think of something, bites his lip. "Dunno…" he says slowly, wearily. "Feel tired… hurts… back hurts, inside. Don't think I slept too good…"

"Bad dreams, Gabe," Lee says, staring hard at him. "You was havin' a real doozy when I got in last night. Maybe you need to be takin' another one of them red pills 'fore you bed down at night. Might help you sleep better. Ain't that right Missy?"

Gabe doesn't respond, doesn't even seem to have heard Lee's suggestion.

"I say, ain't that right, Missy!" Lee snaps.

She meets his glare. "Lee, I been thinkin' maybe you need to start takin' them red pills again," she says.

She wins the staring match. Lee looks back to Gabe, discomfited, attempts to hide it by leaning over and tugging at Gabe's sleeve. "Hey Gabe, bet I know what'll cheer you up. How's about you come with me tonight and help me get that pig?"

Missy interjects, witheringly, "Jus' how you gonna manage that, Lee? He can barely walk."

"He can ride one of the mules," Lee says, dismissively. "I know this pig's territory. Gabe can get far enough there on the mule, and I can piggyback you the rest of the way, boy! Then set you down all safe and sound while I show that pig how the Benders does things. How 'bout that!"

Missy has already lost the battle. Gabe's face is brightening up, his eyes coming alive and eager. And Lee likes knowing that he's the reason for that smile.

Lee's as good as his word, solicitous as he loads Gabe up on the mule, makes sure he's _sittin' tight up there, boy_ , marches along at the mule's head as Gabe half-dozes the whole way. He rouses with a jerk as Lee reaches up and supports his slide down off the mule, his heart hammering unaccountably fast in his chest as he comes flush up against his brother during the clumsy descent. Lee doesn't comment, just smiles, drapes Gabe's arm over his shoulder and supports him as they walk further into the trees, then sets him down against a tree.

"You rest easy there, Gabe," Lee says. "That pig's gonna be here snuffling around real soon, and we's gonna take him out the game so fast he won't know what hit him."

"'Kay… good," says Gabe, feeling tired but thinking that he should have a gun, something he can use for killing, thinking he doesn't feel right without his Colt tucked in the back of his jeans.

Lee kneels in front of him and again Gabe gets a strange sense of unease from having him crowding so close.

"Gabe… that hunt you was talkin' about. You wanna tell me about it again now, boy?" Lee asks. His voice is kind, his usual voice, he seems interested now, not mad. But when Gabe opens his mouth to tell him what he remembers of the hunt, that isn't what comes out.

"Lee… I think I must've dreamed that hunt," he says softly. "Things are all mixed up in my head, it isn't right up there. It aches and I think I'm seeing things that aren't there and thinking things that never happened. I don't think I'm right in the head yet."

Lee sucks on a tooth for a minute or two. "Well, I seen that happen before, Gabe," he replies thoughtfully. "Get a tap on the head like you did and you's liable to magic up all sorts o' pictures in there." And he reaches out with a balled fist, bops Gabe gently on the shoulder. "You sit, boy. Relax. Let old Lee git her done."

Lee heads off into the trees and Gabe sits and passes the time imagining his dream car and ignoring the tiny voice in the back of his mind that's telling him he's staked out.

That he's the bait in this hunt.

He may have been born at night but it wasn't last night.

This thing is smarter than most examples of its kind he's encountered over the years, but it isn't as smart as he is. He knows damn well it has circled around behind him but it doesn't have the gray matter to know that he's out-thought it, doubled back around himself and can even now see its shadow, a blacker mass in the darkness, as it squats against the tree, lying in wait.

Why it doesn't react to his presence as he slowly edges towards it is beyond him, but he sure as heck isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wonders if it's sleeping, didn't think they slept unless they were hibernating, but no matter, because it's about to take the nap of all time as he raises up the flare gun and takes aim.

The moon peeps out from behind a cloud. It's not a full moon, but the light it casts is bright enough to throw the shadows off the thing's face.

He stops, looks. He blinks, scrunches his eyes together tight for a second or two. Opens them, takes a step forward, roots out his flashlight and takes a deep breath as he flicks it on and shines it right at the shape.

It jolts awake, cries out in shock and anguish, stares wildly, familiar catlike eyes – one of them puffy and bruised black – huge in a too-sharp face, patchy stubble darkening its jaw, hair in frenzied spikes.

The hunter gapes. "Dean? _Dean_?"

The boy plainly doesn't know him, there's no recognition in his eyes, only sheer, unadulterated fright, as he presses himself back into the tree.

He crouches, reaches out a placating hand. "Dean, it's me, you know me… take it easy, I'm not gonna hurt you, boy…"

And abruptly the kid's whole manner changes, it's like something clicks in his brain. He still doesn't know him – that much is obvious – but the fear seems to transform into agitation and his eyes look beyond him, into the darkness, before he starts to mutter something over and over, words stumbling over each other so fast the hunter has to strain to hear them.

" _Run-run-run-run-run-run-run_ —"

It's the one word the old man always has obeyed without question.

He wheels, ducks, zig-zags back in the direction he came, hearing crashing noises, the blat of gunfire, something whistling way too close in the dark. He runs and he doesn't stop running until he reaches the trail end where he parked his truck.

And once he's back in his motel room and has downed two fingers of Jack, Bobby Singer calls John Winchester's cellphone.

**10\. The Devil's Son**

Gabe doesn't really know why he told the man to run, and when he meanders back to consciousness to find himself slung over the back of the mule, he wishes he hadn't. He didn't even think Lee was capable of such rage, but his brother's fists made contact with a dedicated fury that had him spitting blood and hearing muffled grinding, cracking noises from deep down inside himself, as he grew less and less aware of the avalanche of blows until he knew no more.

Now each in-breath sends daggers of pain lancing through his chest, and his lower back aches dully with what he guesses is the imprint of Lee's boot. The trickling sensation down his cheek tells him the almost-healed wound on his head has split open again from the impact of being swung around by his splinted wrist – which, by some small mercy, he can no longer feel – and smashed into welcome oblivion against a tree. But even as he drips a bloody trail along the ground and the crest of each breath is a useless, shrill, oxygen-starved squeak, his physical discomfort pales in comparison to what he now knows about his brother, about his family, about himself.

 _We kill innocents_.

And it doesn't make sense… saving people, Gabe thought they were saving people… he's so sure in his addled brain that he can remember his father telling him, hear himself earnestly saying the words himself, as he gazed long and deep into his brother's dark eyes, in these very woods.

But he's a stone-cold killer bred from stone-cold killer stock, and he's been tapped on the head too hard so many times he's imagining demons, werewolves and zombies in the place of the man – _men, women, oh please God, please God no children_ – his brother had been hunting tonight.

 _I kill innocents_ , he thinks, and his heart starts to freeze inside him. Glimmering frost dusts its surface, ice crystals crackle their way through to its very center, needle-sharp icicles drip down.

 _I'm a killer_ , he thinks, dully. _I'm a monster_.

And everything about him that he thought might be good turns hard and cold.

Sam doesn't know where he is, can't remember where he's been, has no memory of any of the last – how many days? He knows nothing, cares less. He isn't living in the now, doesn't want to. Just wants to drift in memories that have all the bad times edited out.

Sam doesn't talk, doesn't eat, doesn't sleep. Sam just drives. If he can just keep driving he can outpace it, keep one step ahead of it, never have to acknowledge it, never have to face it, never have to accept it, never have to live with it.

 _It never happened_.

And somewhere out there his brother is waiting, Mr Catch-Me-If-You-Can, always just one step ahead of him, just out of sight, just over the horizon… _look at me, come with me, follow me, be with me_ …

People knock at Hudak's door infrequently enough for her heart to leap into her throat as she practically runs to see who it is. She schools her face into an expression that she hopes isn't disappointment as she looks up at an older man, fiftysomething, his craggy face evidence of a hard life hard lived, but softened by the crease of smile lines and kindly eyes. He whips off a well-worn baseball cap, clears his throat.

"Sorry to trouble you ma'am but I'm lookin' for someone and I think he might have been here. Young kid, name of Sam…"

The man looks honest. Straight up. And Hudak is a good judge of character.

"What makes you think this kid might be here?" she says, as casually as she can.

"Well… his dad tells me he placed a call to his cellphone from this number. Like I said, I'm sorry to trouble you, but it's real important I find Sam. Real important."

It's said with the utmost sincerity. And she's a good judge of character. "Why don't you come inside?" she says.

The old man goes to the trouble of wiping his boots on the mat, which impresses Hudak no end, and finally she smiles, sticks out her hand. "I'm Deputy Kathleen Hudak. I guess I'm a friend of Sam's."

She's sharp enough to see the man's eyes widen slightly at the word Deputy, but he doesn't miss a beat, takes her hand and shakes it firmly.

"Bobby Singer. I'm mighty pleased to meet you ma'am, though I hope Sam and that crazy-fox brother of his haven't been causing trouble hereabouts."

 _He's good, very good_ , Hudak thinks, already fishing for information not five steps inside the door and five seconds past the meet-and-greet. She leads him through to the kitchen, pulls out a chair, thinks to herself, _fuck it, it's after five somewhere_ , and liberates a couple of Buds from the fridge.

"I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here and assume this is something to do with what happened to Dean," she ventures, dropping into the chair opposite Singer.

The man sucks on his beer, gives her a measured look, seems to be pondering just how much she really knows and how much he can reveal. _Ditto_ , she thinks.

She lays her cards on the table. "Look, I'm up with everything that's happened, in fact I was there for it. I've been trying to find Sam myself but he left after we found the remains. I know he called Stanford but he hasn't been back there."

The man raises a hand. "Just, just… slow down a second there, Deputy. Can we rewind this? Whose remains?"

"Well, Dean's," Hudak starts, and for a second the man's face pales and there's an expression in his eyes that speaks of such heartfelt pain she feels she's intruding by meeting his gaze.

He clears his throat. "That… isn't possible," he says, and his voice breaks slightly.

"Yes, that's it you see," she replies. "It wasn't him. It was a hiker out of Minneapolis. But I only got the forensics on it beginning of the week and Sam left two weeks ago, right after we found the… pieces."

"You found these remains two weeks ago then… not in the last day or so?"

"Yeah, and four other hikers are missing…" she says, and it's her turn to fish now. "Do you know where Sam is? Or where he might go?"

Singer doesn't reply at first and then suddenly he makes a slight choking noise, releases a breath Hudak hadn't even been aware he was holding, rubs his forehead hard. "I'm real sorry ma'am," he mutters. "If you could just bear with me… it's just that for a second there, I thought… I thought…"

She understands immediately. "It definitely wasn't him, Mr Singer," she says, reaching out a hand and laying it on his arm. "But he's been missing for almost a month now and last we know he was severely injured… and the man who took him—"

"I saw him," the man cuts in bluntly. "Dean. Three nights ago out in the woods."

Hudak can't help it, she actually lets out a small cry of something that's a mixture of shock, relief and joy, claps her hand up to her mouth, feels sudden tears spring from her eyes. "Oh my God," she stutters. "Oh my God."

"When you said you were huntin' pigs, Lee, I thought you meant the four-legged kind," Gabe says for the _nth_ time, but his mind's only half there, distracted as he is by the fact that he's propped up against a tree _again_ , his wrist is practically weeping for mercy </i>again</i>, his chest aches dully _again_ , his head is splitting _again_. And the list gets longer: his cough still ebbs and flows, his lower back throbs, and even pissing into the dirt doesn't disguise the fact that the it comes out of him bloody. He glances at the dog, ever present at his side these days, thinks to himself it would be just his luck if the mutt decided to take a chunk out of his other leg so it matches up with the one the wolf chowed down on.

Lee has barely said two words to him since the other night and isn't in the mood for conversation now. "Fucktard!" he barks in Gabe's general direction before he stalks off into the trees, and Gabe thinks his brother sure is a quick study for someone who, just a couple of weeks back, looked at Gabe as if he'd suggested they cut off Missy's head and snack on her brains any time he cussed.

 _Fucktard yourself_ , Gabe thinks.

"Fucktard yourself!" Missy hollers after Lee as he leaves.

 _My work here is done_ , InnerGabe says smugly, as Missy plunks herself down next to him.

"Gabe, them pigs don't mean nothin'," she remarks, as she roots around Pa's bag for his medicine. "It's what we've always done, kill them pigs. It's how Pa raised us."

Gabe wracks his brain to remember and is suddenly hit by an image, clear as day, of a big glass jar of teeth, flashes of slicing, slashing, stabbing, shooting: blurred images that make no sense because the things he and his dad, and sometimes his brother, are hunting down don't exist outside of a damaged, twisted, warped, sick as _fuck_ imagination, don't exist outside of nightmares. "But it's not real…" he says weakly. "It's not real."

Missy touches his cheek with a tenderness that surprises him, brings moisture to his eyes. It reminds him of… kindness, compassion, sympathy. Things that have no place in the heart and soul of a monster such as he.

"Gabe," she says softly. "It sure is real, Gabe. I seen you do it. I seen you rip at them pigs, I seen you gut 'em like fish and rip out their tongues to quiet 'em. S'what we do Gabe. S'what _you_ do… and Pa was awful proud of you. Said you was the best he ever seen, said you was an artist."

Missy nods in affirmation of her own words, and Gabe feels his guts churn, looks at his hands, ordinary hands, not too big, compact, sturdy. A monster's hands, steeped in blood and he doesn't want to think about whose, wants oblivion. "What's in Pa's bag?" he asks.

Missy looks over, grimaces. "I can't read too good, Gabe. S'all just colors to me."

"What colors besides red and pink?"

She pulls out a couple of pill bottles. "Blue. Red 'n' yeller…"

Gabe motions impatiently, "Gimme the bag, kid."

She tosses it over and Gabee roots through it, pulls out bottles of pills in rainbow colors. Finds a baggie, of all things, buried in the corner, pulls it out. Small, shriveled, greenish disks. "Ohhhhhhh…" he breathes out, and he smiles. "The divine cactus… _yahtzee_ …"

Maybe it'll give him some respite, a break from thinking.

It's the acid trip of all time once the gut ache passes. The pain hovers on the distant horizon, kept at bay by sheer euphoria and a wonderful floating, dizzy sensation in his head. Gabe laughs until tears trickle down his cheeks because the grass is totally hilarious, the sky is a comic genius and the trees, well those alone are worth the fuckin' price of admission.

"Fuckin' _awesome_!" he shouts at the stars, as he weaves around the campsite, and he swears he can see his words streaming out of his mouth in bright colors, sky-blue-pink. "S'like… fuckin _Woodstock_ , dude!" he warbles over at Missy, who gazes unblinkingly at him like she's entranced. "Bobby was at fuckin' Woodstock, kiddo! He ever tell you that, huh?"

She shakes her head, her eyes huge, and for a second Gabe is solemn, grave, raises his finger authoritatively. "I weren't at fuckin' Woodstock, kid. But I still seen the best. The _best_!" He thinks for a second. "I seen… old guys! With beards! And guitars. S'right. Fuckin'… _rocktastic_ , kiddo. Driver picks the fuckin' music and don't you forget it…"

Missy's face is all lit up with pleasure and she claps her hands as Gabe twirls clumsily, sees his brother make his way back into the clearing, sit down. "Lee! Dude! Where you been?" he cries. "The snake god's watchin' you!" He reaches into his boot, pulls out his Bowie, weighs it carefully, lets it fly. It sinks into the tree his brother is leaning on, no more than an inch to the left of his eye. Which widens.

"Fuckin-A, man," Gabe shrieks. "I'm a fuckin' hunter! Death to pigs!" He howls it to the heavens. "Hear me roar! See me hunt!"

He feels a tap on his shoulder, spins around to find himself face to face with his brother.

Lee leans into him, forehead against his, hand gripping the back of his neck. Stares right into his eyes, and Gabe meets his gaze without blinking.

Lee smiles.

"Good boy, Gabe. Good boy."

Hudak is up at first light flipping pancakes, smirks at what her elderly neighbors might be thinking about the fact that some guy's truck has been parked on her driveway all night, rolls her eyes at the thought that the last man she had sleep over was fifteen years too young and this one is fifteen years too old. Even so, she's not entirely sure if there wasn't a halfhearted, fumbled pass in there somewhere last night, in amid the blurry haze of beer and Jack.

But there are more important things to talk about as Bobby comes into the kitchen a little shy, perks up at the sight of a full stack, a plate of bacon, and a pot of coffee.

Hudak pours him a mug, shakes a bottle of aspirin under his nose. "So," she says. "Dean Winchester. Alive and kicking." She can't remember much of what he might have told her last night and tenses as his face falls.

"Well… alive."

She could kick herself. "Not looking good, then?"

"No… haven't seen the kid looking that rough in years. And it takes a lot when you're that pretty."

 _Oh yeah_. She might have upwards of ten years on the boy, but she's a red-blooded woman and if there's one thing that springs to mind about Dean Winchester, it's the pretty.

"Looked like he'd dropped a lot of weight," Bobby goes on. "White as a sheet. And he just didn't know me. There was nothing there, no spark, nothing. But he warned me. Told me to run. And God help me, I turned tail and ran." He shakes his head. "Jesus, I should've grabbed him… drug him with me. But I was… I thought I was seeing things. His dad called me a couple weeks back, said Sam had left a message on his cell saying he thought Dean was dead. Seeing him like that… I thought I was going mad or something…"

Hudak zeroes right in on something he said. "Sam's dad… he didn't call him. Not to my knowledge anyway."

Bobby's expression is unreadable as she continues.

"But he called you."

Now Bobby sighs. "It's… _complicated_. John has his reasons. I don't agree with them but it's not really for me to say why he is the way he is or does what he does."

Hudak sniffs, finishes her coffee. Not her business really, and she knows enough to know how the man must have suffered. "Well, wherever Sam is, he does think his brother's dead," she says ruefully. "It was… horrible, to be honest. Not just grief… _guilt_."

"Lot of history there," Bobby confirms. "Dean all but raised Sam, thinks the sun rises and sets with his brother. When Sam went off to Stanford he was lost without him, just lost. But their life… Sam never wanted it. Wanted a better life, but all Dean wanted was Sam, Sam was his life."

He stops then, and Hudak gets the impression he thinks he's said way too much. "You don't think Sam would do anything stupid do you?" she says, abruptly.

"No," says Bobby, with the utmost confidence, but then his eyes narrow. "Though I can tell you it'd be a different answer if it was the other way round."

Hudak shivers at that, momentarily debates telling the man he might be surprised, might be horrified at Sam's reaction. But he's worried enough. "Where would Sam go?" she broaches. "Somewhere to lick his wounds? Somewhere to forget? Somewhere he was happy… somewhere _they_ were happy?"

And suddenly the man's face lights up and his eyes widen. "I know where he is…"

Gabe sits and wrings his hands, shoulders hunched, glancing all around him. The dawn is too quiet, too dark, even up near the fire with the dog close by and Missy sitting at his feet. "This isn't right, this isn't right, this isn't right," he mutters in a loop, and he can't stop himself even when Missy reaches up to pat him on the knee and clucks at him comfortingly.

"Jeez, Gabe," Lee calls over from where he's lounging by the fire, cranky at being kept up all night by Gabe as he swooped and soared. "Can the whinin', s'all fine, boy."

Missy frowns at Lee for a moment. "You huntin' that pig again tonight, Lee?" she says.

Lee smiles slowly, doesn't take his eyes off Gabe. "Nope," he drawls. "Think I'm gonna stick close to Gabe tonight, little lady. I'm thinkin' he's gonna need ole Lee to take care of him."

Missy makes a baleful grunting sound, squeezes Gabe's knee harder. "Come on, Gabe," she coaxes, and she tugs at his hand as she rises to stand.

Gabe pushes up beside her, not really willing, keeps his eyes on his brother as Missy shepherds him over to the bedroll. She pushes him down, drapes herself over him protectively and leans in to kiss his brow.

"There's things out there," he tells her. "Things in the dark… Things in the dark…" He stares into her eyes. "I have bad dreams," he confides. "Some guy looming up in my head. I don't want to have that dream again… when is he coming? When is he going to come get me…?"

Missy kisses his cheek, cards his hair with her fingers, whispers in his ear. "S'fine, baby boy. S'fine. Angels are watching over you. No one's takin' you from me. No one…" she grasps his hand, holds it to her cheek. "I'm never leavin' you, Gabe. We'll be together always."

Gabe turns to her, sees devotion in her eyes, and he believes her. He nuzzles his cheek against hers, closes his eyes as her hand creeps under his shirt, plays across the skin of his chest and lower, to his belly, his hips, and lower, lower, round and round, back and forth, up and down, tickling, teasing.

He sighs, gives a soft moan as he drifts off to the sensations.

Bobby drives there non-stop, periodically calling ahead, asking, pleading and finally hollering at Sam to _pick up the fuckin' phone, boy! I know damn well you're there!_

It's all to no avail of course and he curses the _fuckin' Winchesters_ and the _fuckin' ground they walk on_. Bastard John Winchester, who should have dropped his kids off with Child Protection instead of dragging them all the way across the lower forty-eight and back on his revenge kick, turning his oldest into a near-psychotic serial killer and driving his youngest as far away from the remnants of his family as he could possibly get.

He hasn't eaten in hours, wolfed down the bagel Hudak packed for him not five minutes after he pulled off the driveway, the sheer novelty of having his lunch prepared by a female of the species sharpening his appetite to a razor's edge. _Butter!_ he marvels abstractedly. _There was even butter on it! And a fuckin' banana!_

Bobby hangs a right, clouds of dust flying up as his truck pulls off the blacktop, under the sign, past decades-old wrecked cars stacked three and four high, where his surrogate sons used to play, and up to the house.

The Impala is parked where he knew it would be and the stench as he peers inside is unbelievable, the back seat a mess of carelessly discarded pizza boxes and Chinese takeout cartons, hardly a bite eaten by the looks of things, Sam growing a pretty decent crop of penicillin in there as he drove.

The object of his search is slumped on the porch swing, empties scattered around his feet. His hair is exploding off his head in all directions, his eyes shadowed with despair, his face gray with stress, his chin scruffed with stubble, his mouth wide open. He's drooling and snoring at the same time, because that boy sure can multi-task. And Bobby can't help it, he feels an outpouring of paternal affection for this kid who he never really held in as much regard as his older brother – and sometimes hated for the damage he wreaked on his sibling when he left – until now, as he sees what losing Dean has wrought.

He sits next to Sam, rocks the swing gently for a few minutes till the motion rouses the boy. He focuses blearily on Bobby and his face crumples.

"I know, boy," Bobby says gently. "I know." He reaches out, places a large hand each side of Sam's face, speaks slow, clear, calm, steady.

"I saw him, Sam. I've been there, hunting down a wendigo. I saw your brother. He's alive."

And Bobby catches Sam as he falls.

_Gabe dreams the same dream_.

He follows the tinkling laughter, laughing himself as he almost falls ass over tip in the rising dust, trying to catch the other boy.

This time the pain nearly rips him in half.

**11\. Where the Wild Things Are**

Sam is half awake and holding off full alert for as long as he can. The car window is cool against his cheek, the motion soporific. He grips them tight and hugs them close: these first few waking seconds when he's certain he's in the Impala and that if he flicks his eyes to the side he'll see his brother in his peripheral vision, humming quietly to himself as he guides the car along the curving highway, left hand dangling out the window, alternately stroking his baby's metal skin and lazily trailing in the breeze.

"Tell me it wasn't a dream," he whispers, as he does finally slant his eyes left to look at Bobby. "Tell me it wasn't a dream. What you said."

Bobby seems adrift in thought himself and he jumps slightly, recovers, pulls the truck off onto the verge and shuts her off before twisting in his seat.

"No dream, Sam," he says gently. "It was him, sure as I'm looking at you now, boy. Your brother's alive. Dean's alive."

Sam gazes mutely at the older man, brings his arms up, hugs himself tight for a minute. Then he explodes into motion, slamming out of the truck.

Bobby knows enough to leave the boy for a few minutes: way too much like his father, that one. It brings back memories of Winchester senior's cold, lasting anger and sullen, brooding sloughs of despond that lasted for days at a time, and Bobby finds himself longing for Dean's nuclear meltdown rage that fizzles so hot it burns itself out in an instant, leaving the boy sunshine-bright, like the sky after a thunderstorm.

He sees Sam in the rearview mirror, walking away ten feet or so behind the truck and abruptly sitting down in the dust. He lets the boy take five, hooks a bottle of water from the back seat, climbs out and stretches before making his way to where Sam slumps.

He dangles the bottle.

No response.

Bobby sits down next to Sam, his knees creaking in protest. "I know what this is, Sam, and you can stop it right now," he says, matter-of-factly. "You didn't know. And from what I'm told, it looked pretty conclusive."

Sam's lower lip trembles. "I left him there. Hurt. Defenseless. I walked away when he needed me most." He looks up. "You see a pattern here, Bobby?"

Bobbt leans back, looks at the sky, thinks he's seen the self-pity trip too many times before, from this boy's father. Then he pushes up onto his feet. "I see daylight burning, boy," he says. "Now, what say we go get your brother?"

He walks back to the truck, doesn't look to see if Sam is following. Truth be told, Bobby doesn't have the time to indulge him. "Wallowing in guilt ain't gonna git her done, kid," he hollers back as climbs in the truck and starts up the engine. And Sam is right on his heels, settling in shotgun, his face a mixture of embarrassment, relief, immense gratitude.

Bobby doesn't skip a beat. "Four nights ago now, woods north east of Hibbing. I was following up missing hikers, reckoned it might be a wendigo. Seems from what your Deputy Kathleen says, it might be this Lee Bender carrying on the family business."

He hears sputtering noises, glances over expecting to see Sam dissolving in tears, is mighty surprised to hear him start laughing instead. But it's forced, unsettling, unhinged even.

"Lee Bender," Sam hoots. "A bendigo. That's what Dean would say… it's a bendigo." And he rubs his eyes as tears start to leak out, until he can't stem the flow and they stream unchecked. "Dean," he says then, softly, as if it hurts to say his brother's name. " _Dean_."

Bobby keeps his eyes on the road and keeps driving. Reaches out with his right arm, pulls Sam's head down onto his shoulder, rubs his back and feels the damp soak through his shirt and tee. Finds that he does have the time to indulge him.

Sam calms down gradually, finally breathes easier, pats Bobby's leg and then pulls away, sitting up and exhaling deeply.

"Tell me about my brother, Bobby."

Bobby gives it to him straight. "I came on him real sudden, was full sure he was the wendigo. Jesus, if the moon hadn't lit him up just that second I'd have let him have the flare right in the guts." The awful _what if?_ has a wave of nausea rising in Bobby, and he pauses for a second. "Something bad's going down there, Sam. He looked real sick… hurt. He didn't know me… he was petrified, seemed to think I might hurt him."

He looks over at the boy. Sam's face is pale but firmly set, his emotions carefully controlled. "I thought I was looking at a ghost, a revenant…" Bobby goes on, and he sucks in a breath at the mental image of what he really feared – insane laughter and obsidian eyes mocking him, a hideous perversion of the boy he loves as his own. "Or maybe worse," he voices the thought, "maybe a demon. And then all of a sudden it was like he thought of something… like a lightbulb moment. And he told me to run. And someone started taking potshots and God forgive me, I did run… I left him. God forgive me, I left him when he needed me most."

He looks at Sam, and Sam looks at him.

And Bobby thinks it might be the first thing they've ever really had in common.

Gabe's no fuckin' fun these last two days, according to his brother.

"You're no fuckin' fun no more, boy!" he yells right in Gabe's face, and so help him Gabe cowers because Lee is damned scary when he's like this.

Lee sinks his boot in Gabe's gut, reaches down and grabs Pa's bag from his frantic grasp, scattering the contents in all directions, and Gabe is horrified, rallies himself and scrabbles about desperately picking up the bottles, greedily reaching for the precious baggie with its promise of another world.

"You got no right," he cries, trying and failing to dodge another kick, pain from his leg and from hidden places deeper inside him making him clumsy.

Missy is beside herself, bleating a protest as she hovers just out of Lee's reach and finally crying out in alarm as Lee grips Gabe's collar and flings him aside, turning to follow with an inhuman gleam in his eyes. To find his way barred by the dog. The animal stands guard over Gabe as he shivers there, its soft whining interspersed with a low growl and its hackles raised.

"Well if that don't fuckin' beat all," Lee cries, and laughter bubbles up out of him, long and loud and hearty. "You got the magic touch, Gabe," he says in amusement, as he sits down and pours himself some coffee. "You got Missy here kissin' it better every night and now even the fuckin' dog is puttin' out."

He reaches down, picks up an errant pill bottle, pitches it in Gabe's direction. "Don't forget the red ones, boy," he sniggers. "You know how them red ones cheer you up!"

Gabe tucks the bag into his bedroll, retrieves the red pills, eyes his brother cautiously. "You feel better now, Lee?" he ventures.

Lee puffs out air in a whistle. "Yeah." He pats the ground next to him. "C'mere, purty boy!"

Gabe feels pathetically grateful to be forgiven for whatever it was he did – though in truth he doesn't think he did anything – and he shuffles over, sits down.

Lee drapes his arm around him, pulls his head down onto his shoulder. "Gabe, boy, you know I don't really mean it when I get mad," he says softly. "It jus' comes outta nowhere, jus' lights up like a fire. But ole Lee don't mean it. You're my family, boy. My brother."

Gabe sighs out his tension, relaxes into the embrace.

His brother is all he needs. His brother is his life, and always has been.

Sam wants his brother.

He wants his brother in that way little kids want their mom when they get an _owie_ , when thunder claps in the darkness, when they dream about the boogeyman. Wants Dean to pick him up, set him back on his feet, tell him everything's okay because he isn't alone. Knows that when – _if_ – Dean ever does that again, he's going to have to look his brother in the eye and 'fess up: yup, Dean, I walked away. _Again_.

Hudak has three backpacks prepped and parked in her hallway, and is in the middle of rolling and strapping sleeping bags when they arrive. She hugs Sam briefly, hard and tight, orders him straight to the shower.

Under cover of the water's gush, it all pours out, and Sam leans on the cold tile and bawls like he hasn't done since the night he was ordered out of the ICU where Dean lay gasping for every breath while his damaged heart beat slower and slower with every hour that passed. He remembers that at the time he thought nothing would ever leave him feeling as desolate. But these last weeks, living with the knowledge of his brother's death, living _beyond_ Dean – for that is what this has been to him – have rendered him unrecognizable to himself.

His brother is everywhere… the phantom sitting next to him in the car, the unseen presence keeping step with him, the light touch he imagines on his back, the voice he can't quite hear rambling in his head as it's carried away on the wind. Everything smells of Dean, of gun oil, cheap aftershave, stale beer, and Sam wears his brother's worn tees when he beds down, buries his face in the fabric while sleep becomes a distant memory.

Each day has been Groundhog Day as he goes over it again, again, _again_ : if Dean hadn't needed the can, if he'd gotten straight in the car, if Hudak had given them a ride, if they'd run upstream instead of down. Each night has been drink-sodden but though the alcohol robs Sam of any outward vocal coherence, the voice inside his head still screams loud and clear as it rages at his brother… _you fucking bastard, how could you leave me like this, why come get me and then do this?_

And inevitably it has always come back round to the fact that when Dean lay gray-faced and dying after his heart attack, he had been so casual about Sam being left behind – and Sam had known it wasn't just bravado. Dean really had believed that losing him wouldn't matter to Sam, that Sam cared so little he would just take it in stride, go back to school, get his degree, become some hotshot lawyer and maybe think fleetingly of his brother on Dean's birthday before putting his memory back in mothballs until the following year. "Well take a fucking look!" he howls out into the water, not caring if Bobby, Hudak and the whole town of Hibbing can hear him. "Look at what you did to me, you fucking bastard! Look at what you did when you left! How could you think it wouldn't matter? When it matters more than anything! _Anything_ …"

He slides down and sits on the mosaic floor of the shower stall, sobs at the thought that his brother is out there somewhere full sure that he, Sam, is getting on with his life… full sure that his loss doesn't matter. And somehow that's worse than thinking his brother was dead.

He weeps until the water runs cold.

They drive up to the trailhead that was Bobby's point of access, and walk all afternoon. When they stop to eat, Bobby pores over the map and Hudak hands Sam a foil-wrapped footlong, packed to bursting with some generic deli meat and all sorts of plant life.

Sam suddenly realizes he's starving, has this mental image of himself either throwing his head back and inserting the sub straight down into his stomach like a carnival sword swallower, or his lower jaw miraculously elongating so he can dump the entire thing in there, just like those alien lizards disguised as humans did with the rats in V. He decides he'll stick with that fantasy, flashing back to his teenage brother's child-like delight at that very scene when they both sat up half the night watching it even though Sam had a math test the next day. And he resolves to make a list of all the schlock horror B-movies he and Dean have watched together and remind his brother of them often: godzilla, mothra, killer rabbits, giant ants, that one about the doberman that gets bitten by a vampire bat and becomes Zoltan, Hound of Dracula.

Hudak and Bobby have circled landmarks on the map: the Bender place, the approximate spot along the river where the dog jumped Dean – Bobby squeezing his shoulder when he points to it – the location of the abandoned truck, where the hikers' remains were discovered, the last known location of the four who are missing, and where Bobby saw Dean.

"Looks like they've been following the river pretty closely," Hudak observes, pointing to the lake marked on the map. "That's Nett Lake, where the cabin Swenson told us about might be."

"If it even exists," Sam mutters.

"Well, looking at how much time has passed and where I saw Dean it don't look like they're moving all that fast," Bobby says, and he leaves the _why_ of it unspoken although Sam's imagination fills in the gaps, taunting him with images of his brother's injuries as described by Swenson.

"Did he look hurt? Was he hurt? How was his leg?" he asks again, even though Bobby has patiently explained that it was too dark to see much beyond his brother's black eye.

The old man is patient as ever as he says it again. "It was dark, Sam, and he was sitting down. I didn't see his leg."

Sam drums his fingers on his knee. It's like a hunger, the desperation, the sheer lust to know, to see for himself that his brother is alive.

Not an hour after they set off after packing up camp the next morning Bobby, ten yards or so ahead, makes his way up to the crest of a ridge and abruptly drops to his haunches. Hudak and Sam follow suit, crouching as they make their way up to join him.

They're overlooking a small clearing thirty yards or so further along the course of the river, and although the tree cover is thick it's clear that people are camping there. Hudak wriggles out of her backpack, roots around in it and pulls out a pair of binoculars, senses Sam's need and hands them to him.

For long seconds Sam scopes the clearing, barely daring to breathe. And then everything drains out of him, like somebody pulled the plug. He sets the binoculars down, rolls over onto his back, his arm covering his eyes.

Bobby snatches the binoculars up faster than Jesse James reaching for his pistol, gazes through them, finds what he seeks within a few seconds. "Dean," he breathes. " _Gotcha_."

Hudak produces the flask she filled with coffee before they broke camp that morning, pours Sam a cup while Bobby wriggles further up the ridge, binoculars glued to his eyes.

"You okay?" she prods gently, because she's way too sharp not to have noticed that Sam hasn't taken any more than that one first glance down into the campsite.

"Yeah…" he answers hoarsely. "Yeah. It's… I never thought… I never…"

And it's true: even though Bobby had seen his brother, some small part of Sam still hadn't dared to hope or dream. But there he is, almost close enough to touch.

Bobby slides back down, hands Sam the binoculars, moves to take a draught of coffee, calm himself, take stock. And formulate a plan, Sam knows. He takes a deep, steadying breath, crawls back up the ridge, focuses on the campsite. He can see the kid pottering about, crossing back and forth in front of his brother. "Get out of the fucking way," he murmurs and she obliges as if he'd been standing right next to her handing out orders.

Dean sits and stares, his stillness unnatural to Sam, used as he is to his brother's constant buzz of manic energy. Dean twitches even in sleep, but in the circle of the binocular lenses, he's a statue, unmoving, looking at nothing as the kid bustles. It's tranquil… but not. And Sam can't help thinking that it speaks of a _not-thereness_. Even as he drinks in the sight of his brother, it's disturbingly like looking at something that's a very clever carbon copy: Dean – but _not-Dean_. But then, at last, there is a sudden movement – a distinctly odd one.

Dean puts his hands up to his face, covers his eyes.

It's quiet down there, just his brother and the kid. And something occurs to Sam. "It's just him and the kid down there," he calls softly back in Bobby's direction. "I can't see Bender or the dog, but Dean's just sitting there. He isn't secured or anything, and it doesn't look as if the kid has a weapon…"

He looks through the binoculars again, sees his brother still sitting with his hands over his eyes.

Bobby completes the thought for him. "So why is he just sitting there…?"

"Could it be the kid?" Hudak throws into the mix. "I mean, maybe he's protecting her, doesn't want to leave her with the brother?"

Bobby looks over at Sam, a meaningful glance. "Could be," he says. "Dean's always had a soft spot for kids… he'd cut off his own arm before he let a kid get hurt on his account."

Sam chews his lip. "He could clear out and take the kid with him, I guess, but she'd slow him down." He doesn't quite know what to make of it, but Bobby interrupts his train of thought.

"What about the fact he didn't seem to know me the other night?" he says. "Boy's taken more than one nasty blow to the head over the years. I hate to say this, but if he was tapped hard enough he might not be thinking straight."

"So he could have gone native?" Hudak suggests, and Sam is full sure his face falls as far as hers at the idea, at the thought of what that might involve, at the thought of four missing hikers and two bodies the FBI forensics report suggested might have been the entrée in the latest Bender banquet if its abundant use of the description _butchered_ was anything to go by.

"Bender must still be in the picture somehow," Bobby says, after a long moment of silence. "Had to have been him shooting at me the other night. Fits in with leaving Dean staked out like that… it was like it was a set-up, the whole thing, to draw me out."

He must see Sam face fall, because he continues quickly. "But the fact your brother warned me, Sam… that tells me he had no part in it. He near jumped out of his skin when I disturbed him, wasn't expecting it at all. And he told me to run. He wouldn't have done that if he was in cahoots with Bender."

It makes Sam feel better, but not by much. He turns to monitor the campsite again, stiffens. "Fuck… it's the dog."

And now Lee Bender himself walks into the camp. And apart from the weird few minutes when Dean hid his face, it's the first time Sam's seen his brother react to anything at all, as he looks up sharply, starts jiggling his right leg up and down.

"Fuck," Sam breathes again. "He's scared."

Gabe can't shake the feeling that he's being watched. He sits as still as he can so as not to draw attention to himself, but suddenly he can't bear it, reaches up and covers his eyes so it can't see him.

He knows Missy is getting food ready for him and he doesn't want it. All he craves is release, _escape_ , and he knows where it lies, too. But even though the rainbow pills and the peyote set him free from the confines of flesh and bone, some small part of him knows that they render the walls of his prison even more impenetrable. Because the fall will be brutal as it always is, the dream will come, the pain, and the morning will be a miasma of sheer ache, and the awful feeling that something is wrong inside, in his soul, in his head, in his body. And the awful certainty that no one is coming.

A swift clip to the top of the head jolts him back to awareness.

"Gabe, snap out of it boy," his brother says as he walks by.

"Yes sir," slips out before Gabe can stop it, and he reaches out to snag the dog as it sits and scratches, thinks how funny it is that he only really feels safe now knowing that Sam is close by, remembering how the dog placed itself between him and his brother the day before.

Lee sits and watches, smiles. "Well look at that," he muses. "Man's best fuckin' friend."

He observes them for a few seconds, gets up, roots around his pack, produces a rope.

Gabe is mute as Lee bends and loops the rope around the dog's neck. "C'mon Sammy boy," he says kindly, clicking his tongue at the dog. I'm gonna show you your new spot."

The dog placidly follows him over to the cart, where he secures the rope to the spokes of the wheel. Unperturbed, it circles around three times, tucks itself up tidily, panting gently.

"Good dog," Lee says, as he returns to sit opposite Gabe. "Well, Gabe, kiddo," he smiles then. "Alone at last."

And Gabe feels himself start to shake. "Lee…" he whispers, his throat thick and dry. "Please, Lee, please… don't."

Sam feels what's left of his breakfast curdle in his stomach as he watches Dean put his arm around the dog and hang onto it, flashes back to the animal ripping savagely at his helpless brother as he screamed impotent rage from the opposite side of the riverbank. His tension lifts slightly as Bender leads it over to the cart and tethers it before going to sit back near Dean, apparently engaging him in conversation.

The explosion of violence is so unexpected Sam cries out in shock.

The bigger man launches himself at Dean, knocks his smaller frame flying, buries his boot in his gut, then hauls him up to land a fusillade of vicious blows with his fists as Dean reaches out his hands, apparently trying to either calm Lee down or beg for mercy – certainly not in an effort to defend himself, for he isn't even attempting to fight back. It's left to the girl to grab hold of Bender's arm and scream at him to stop, while the dog barks frenziedly and practically twists itself inside out trying to escape the rope and join in.

Sam sees all of this in a split-second of time before he leaps to his feet and takes off, only to be tackled and brought crashing down by Bobby as Hudak picks up the binoculars to get a look at what has spooked him so badly.

She curses, drops the binoculars, snaps, "We need to break him out of there now."

"Let me go," Sam cries, and he tries to throw Bobby off, but the stocky hunter has him trapped.

"Look. At. Me!" Bobby hisses, right into Sam's face. It's the kind of tone his dad always used and it gets Sam's attention like nothing else can or does – except seeing his defenseless brother being beaten to death.

Bobby doesn't complicate matters any more than he has to. "Crashing in there with both barrels blazing will just get your brother or the kid killed," he says, very clear so Sam will understand every word. "I'll run interference. You will sneak, I repeat, _sneak_ , down there and grab him once Bender's off the scene."

Sam nods swiftly, and Bobby pats him on the cheek, pushes up, crests the ridge, and bellows down at the campsite.

"Hey you! Lee Bender!"

Sam scrabbles for the binoculars, sees his brother unceremoniously flung to the ground as Bender turns and squints up, eyes widening as he sees Bobby.

"What are you waiting for, asswipe!" Bobby shouts. "You want me? Come get me!"

Bender smiles, reaches for his gun, and lopes into the trees.

Bobby heads off, crashing through the undergrowth, making as much noise as he can, while Hudak grabs their packs and conceals them behind a tree.

Sam picks up his gun and Hudak moves to follow him, but he raises his hand, thinking straight at last. "Stay here. If something happens to Bobby or Bender figures he's been had, I might need someone outside the camp pissing in."

He can tell she doesn't like it, but he's right and she nods, returns to park herself on the ridge as Sam picks his way through the trees as quietly as he can.

Roughly five minutes after he jogs off in pursuit of the pig, who he recognizes full well even in daylight, Lee gets a funny feeling something's not right about this.

Roughly two minutes after that, Bobby gets a funny feeling he's not being chased any more.

The kid sees Sam first, glancing up from where she's trying to haul his just-conscious brother up off his belly, and Sam feels an overwhelming wave of relief as he sees Dean bat at her in irritation and try to push himself up under his own steam. Missy moves as fast as a rattlesnake, rolling and rising back onto her feet in the sort of fluid motion Dean's always been so good at and Sam never has mastered. He'd probably be whistling in admiration if he wasn't looking down the barrels of the gun she has pointed straight at him.

"I know you…" she says, cocking her head, eyes glinting with a sharp intelligence Sam can't recall seeing her display back at the Bender place.

He keeps her covered with his own gun, ignores her, ignores the dog, snarling its fury and still in danger of hanging itself on its own leash as it struggles to get free. He focuses all his attention on his groaning brother, wants nothing more than to drop his weapon and race to gather Dean in his arms, hug him until he yelps for mercy and snarks about _chick-flick moments_. Sam knows his face is wreathed in smiles despite the gun pointed at him, and he calls his brother's name.

Dean looks up, and blood is oozing from a cut on his temple, his lip is split, his right eye and cheek are bruised. He's buried in a huge sweater and baggy combats that don't disguise his weight loss because it's so appallingly clear in his face, sharper and more fine-boned than it has ever looked, his pallor deathly, eyes circled blue-gray.

Eyes that stare at Sam, _through_ him, with no spark of recognition.

"Dean?" Sam prompts softly, and he reaches out his hand. The effect is electrifying: his brother flips over from all fours on to his butt, scrabbles backwards, his sheer fright clear as day.

Sam can't help it: horrified, he starts towards Dean, ignores the kid and her gun, knows that he's calling his brother's name now in rising desperation. But still somewhere in the back of his mind he registers that the dog has abruptly stopped its din and some sixth sense tells him to _whirl, drop, point, shoot_ , as it flies at him, trailing the frayed rope in its wake. It seems to hang suspended in mid-air for a fraction of a second, before flopping bonelessly to the ground.

Everything falls silent as the echo of the gunshot fades, and Sam stares at the dog, then at the kid, who still has him covered and doesn't react at all to the animal's grisly demise.

But suddenly that doesn't matter, as Sam's attention is drawn again to his brother, who sits hugging his knees, rocking back and forth, gasping and keening. And who finally quiets, looks up, meets Sam's gaze with his familiar soft green eyes unrecognizable, recast as ice-cold emerald chips shadowed with unspeakable horrors.

"Mister, you shot my dog," he says, his voice like gravel.

And a blow from behind knocks Sam into the void.

**12\. Welcome to the Jungle**

Bobby hears the gunshot resounding from a mile or so behind him, throws up in his mouth at the thought that it's all gone belly up, turns on his heel and races back in the approximate direction he came.

He feels hollow inside, hollow at the awful possibilities that await, suddenly thinks that maybe Sam _would_ do something stupid, something stupid that got him hurt or killed. And Dean… God, the vision that suddenly dances in his head, of the child of his heart broken, bloody and dying, has him dizzy with fear.

He's careening wildly through the trees, not looking where his feet fall, knows he isn't being as careful as he should be. He doesn't see the root that trips him and sends him crashing down to earth into nothing, but as he falls he thinks to himself, _fuckin' idjit_.

"No! Fuck… no, no, no, _no_ …"

Hudak curses from her vantage point, as Lee Bender looms up behind Sam and sends him face first into the dirt, courtesy of a glancing blow to the back of his head with the stock of his rifle. "Jesus…" she breathes. "Could this get any worse… if it really tried…?"

She drops the binoculars for a minute, forces her racing mind to slow down and smell the coffee. _Think_.

Two hostiles, possibly three if Dean Winchester is doing a Patty Hearst on them. Sam compromised, Bobby off in the sticks somewhere, possibly okay and trying to find his way back, possibly… _not_.

She runs over her options. Sniper she isn't, and even if she was she doesn't have a clear enough shot from here to be sure of hitting Bender and not either the kid or Dean… plus, if she does start taking potshots she'll give away her position, and if she's sure of one thing it's that Lee Bender is better off where she can see him and not sneaking around in back of her. She could go in – but she doesn't have a chance against two, possibly three guns all pointing at her. The element of surprise might work with one of them, but the other two – or one, if Dean isn't Patty – aren't going to stand open-mouthed while she takes aim. It just won't work with all three.

Plain fact is, her only advantage is that they don't know she's up here but Sam does – and he can use it when he comes round.

If he comes round.

But as the hours drag by and the sun starts to sink lower in the sky with no sign of movement from Sam and no sign of Bobby Singer, Hudak starts to get a really bad feeling. Like, maybe this snafu is officially fubar.

Gabe sits and mopes for the dog until Missy declares she's had enough and hauls its stiffening body out of sight, despite his clamoring. "Good job you tied that rope on him, Lee," she says. "That was a real good idea, cuz I woulda had to drag him by the tail if you didn't."

Lee glances over from where he sits, near the new boy's prone body and laughs suddenly. "Hey Gabe," he calls over to his white-faced brother. "Bam, right in the chest! I reckon you and the dog is officially dee-vorced, huh!"

As he expects, Gabe doesn't have much to say for himself, just sits and hugs his knees, and watches the newcomer. Lee thinks for a minute, gets up and rolls the unconscious man over onto his back, walks over and heaves his brother up by the arm, drops him in the dirt next to him. He squats down next to them. "Take a good look, boy," he says. "You seen him before? You know him?"

Gabe shakes his head in obvious alarm. "No, I never did, Lee, I swear. I don't know him. I swear I don't…"

It seems to satisfy Lee, who gets up, flops down on his bedroll, thinks a minute, beckons his sister over. "He's a friend of that pig's, Missy, I know it," he says quietly. "Else how'd that pig know my name, huh?" He stops suddenly, looks at Gabe, who isn't really listening. "So that means we gotta stick real close to this boy," he continues. "No wand'rin' off, sweets. His buddy ain't gonna try nothin' if he thinks he might hit the good guys."

Missy sits down next to him. "Think Gabe 'members him?" she says.

Lee shrugs. "Says he don't. Guess we'll find out when the kid wakes up."

"He ain't havin' Gabe," she says softly.

Lee looks over to where Gabe sits and shakes, wonders if he's even worth the effort any more. "Gabe's no fun no more, Missy," he mutters. "Won't hunt, don't talk. Ain't good for much."

She gives off chewing her knuckles for a moment, leans in close. "He ain't havin' him back, Lee. He's family now. He's with us."

Lee thinks a minute. "We could just keep the new one."

When his sister replies, her voice drips acid. "There ain't gonna be no more new brothers, Lee. I like Gabe just fine. He's mighty purty, and he ain't never hurt me like Jared did. I'm keepin' him. Don't you be gettin' any other ideas on that or I'll make you sorry for thinkin' 'em."

Lee snorts, thinks how it's funny but his sister doesn't scare him like she used to, calls over to Gabe. "Gabe, you look real peaky, boy," he drawls lazily. 'I been thinkin' maybe some o' your special medicine might make you feel better. Might make up for ole Sam-pup over there buyin' the farm."

He knows damn well Gabe has only been waiting for permission, and he confirms it by crawling over to Pa's bag and rummaging through it. He finds what he seeks, chews on it gratefully.

Lee smiles. "Miller time…"

Sam can hear the low whisper of conversation, struggles to open his eyes, hears… _singing_?

"Wheels on the bus keep on turnin'… dunno where I'll be tomorrow…"

And a voice speaks right in Sam's ear.

"Wakey, wakey, boy. You don't wanna miss the show."

Sam jumps despite his resolve to lie still and get the lay of the land, and a hand heaves him up. He groans as his head spins wildly and almost instantaneously his brother's face is right there, inches from his, eyes luminous with an unearthly glow, green lanterns in his ashen face.

"Scanners head, dude," Dean smiles. "Feels like it's 'bout ready to explode, huh?"

His voice is as cold as a welldigger's ass in the Klondike in a downwind, and Sam shivers. And in a quicksilver flash of movement so fast Sam can't even track it with his eyes, Dean has the razor-sharp blade of his Bowie pressed almost lovingly up against the skin of Sam's throat, his eyes flashing with a savage hunger that chills Sam to the marrow.

"You… want… this…?" he breathes.

He's utterly absorbed, eyebrows drawn into a frown of intense concentration, mouth slightly open in a small O. He bites his lower lip in anticipation, his gaze fixed on the blade where it caresses Sam's pulse. He seems hypnotized, and it occurs to Sam that the only time he has ever been studied like that, studied by something that is coldly calculating the most painful and satisfying way of killing him slowly, he was looking at the unholy: creatures of the night, the vilest monsters, Hell's outcasts.

Sam feels his brother's cool breath on his face and his voice is soft, oozing menace.

"I could just… _carve_ …"

Dean's breathing speeds up fractionally and Sam gulps, can't help the muffled _mmmffff_ sound that squeezes out his mouth, as he feels the blade break his skin, feels a warm trickle of blood start tracking a leisurely path down towards his collar.

And then Dean lurches away, ungainly, one leg dragging behind him in the dirt, arms stretched out in airplane wings, spinning dizzily as he continues singing, voice soaring clear and true, now merging into what sounds like – _Nirvana_?

"Here we are now, in containers…"

Sam sucks air into his oxygen-starved lungs, making up for the few minutes when he hasn't dared draw breath, knows he's goggling at the sight of his brother off the reservation by a country mile and flying as high as a kite.

A voice hollers from his left: Bender, sounding mighty amused.

"Hey Gabe! Do your Bon Jovi!" The big man gets up, flops down next to Sam, leans in. "It's real funny when your pal takes a trip, boy."

"Gina was a dyin' of old age…" Dean obliges, losing it for a minute, warbling out a stream of nonsense, catching hold of it again when he hits the chorus. "Doesn't make a diff'rence if we're nekkid or not… we got each other… and that's a lot of fluff…" He spins faster and faster as he sings, reaching up to the sky before abruptly sitting down, apparently spent.

Sam is already testing the ropes that are binding his hands behind his back, doesn't really care about the fact that he's essentially defenseless, with a monster – maybe two – up close and personal. "What have you given my brother, you sonofabitch…" he mutters through gritted teeth, and Bender's eyes widen.

"Brother, huh?" he considers, and he smirks, calls over to Dean. "Hey Gabe, this one says he's your brother. What you got to say about that, boy?"

Sam knows Dean heard, sees him shrink into himself, further into the sweater like he's a turtle pulling its head back into its shell, thinks, _what the fuck is going on with him_?

Bender shifts beside him, gets up, makes his way over to where Dean huddles and yells into his ear. "I said, what you got to say about that, boy?"

His brother's terror is obvious as he cries out, and Sam pulls even more furiously at the ropes, feeling them start to chafe his wrists raw.

Bender sits down next to Dean, smiles right over at Sam. "Gabe's only got one brother hereabouts, ain't that right, Gabe?"

Sam sees his brother's eyes flicking over to Bender, who towers over him even sitting on his ass, sees him wince as if he's expecting to be punched again when Bender puts his arm around his shoulders and hugs him close. When the expected blow doesn't materialize, Dean visibly relaxes, sighing out his anxiety, staring up at Bender with such obvious relief that it makes Sam's blood sizzle in his veins.

Movement to the right distracts him for an instant, the girl, watching Bender with an odd expression in her eyes, one Sam can't quite identify… _Jealousy? Irritation?_

She sees Sam looking right at her and her face closes down suddenly. She gets up, picks her way over a pile of blankets, takes Dean's hand and puts her arm around him, not saying anything but very slowly easing him out of Bender's shadow. Dean sort of limbos up and out from under Lee's bulk, and Bender snorts, doesn't offer any protest.

Although the girl doesn't speak it's all in her eyes. _Enough. Back the fuck off_. And Sam files it away to use later, watches as the girl coaxes Dean down onto the blanket, his head in her lap. He can see that she's speaking to Dean, strains to hear her.

"Now I lay me down to sleep… I pray the Lord my soul to keep… and if I die before I wake… I pray the Lord my soul to take…"

His brother's lips move in response, his voice so soft and dreamy Sam can barely hear it. "Hush little baby, don't say a word… never mind that noise you heard… it's just the beast under your bed… in your closet… in your head…"

It's desperately poignant, and Sam has to blink back tears. But it's a sign. And he cheers silently for the proof his brother is still in there somewhere.

Lee Bender sees Sam's eyes widen, strolls back over and sits down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, companionable, motions over at the pair and raises his eyebrow knowingly. "Missy's real keen on your brother, kid," he says conspiratorially. " _Real_ keen. Even he don't know how keen she is, bein' as he's always trippin' the light fantastic when she turns on her magic fingers…"

Sam feels his stomach surge, gulps it back down. "She's just a kid," he grates out, not taking his eyes off the girl as she strokes his brother's hair.

Lee chuckes. "Yup, that's what Gabe thinks when he snaps out of it. He don't have a fuckin' clue now he's started workin' his way through Pa's medicine bag."

Sam tears his gaze away from his brother, stares at Bender's doughy profile, at his gimlet eyes fixed firm on Dean. "You've been drugging him…"

Bender arranges his features into an expression of mock horror, throws up his hands in exaggerated shock. "No sir, no sir, not me! Not guilty, dude." And he smiles, cocks his head. "Ole Gabe just can't get enough o' his medicine, boy. Why, sometimes I have to near beat him to a pulp to have him let go of that bag…"

"That's a lie," Sam snaps. "You're lying."

Bender shrugs. "Have it your way, boy. But Gabe there's gonna be crashin' soon enough and when that happens, well he'll be screamin' for more peyote. Cuz what can I say… Gabe's not real happy, boy. Don't know why." He stretches his arms out ahead of him, fists and flexes his hands so Sam can hear his elbows and shoulders pop. And Sam notices bruises and bloody grazes on his knuckles, the kind of marks that come with giving someone a beating, knows the mirror images of those marks are on his brother's body.

Bender sees where he's looking, holds his fists up for inspection. "Somethin' about that boy jus' begs to be hit," he muses. "I'm jus' doin' him a favor you know, tryin' to teach him how to throw a punch. Damned if I seen him do it yet. Fuckin' pathetic. Gutless. I swear that yeller streak down his back gets wider every day."

Sam breathes shallow and rapid, bile rising. He knows, suddenly, that he isn't dealing with a halfwit, that Lee Bender might be crazy but he isn't stupid at all now he's sober.

Bender throws him a sideways glance. "Still, I love that little sugar pop, can't deny it," he continues, thoughtfully. "Jus' somethin' about that purty little face o' his, big green eyes, skin so smooth… an' jus' how does he get those sweet little ridges runnin' all across his belly like that…?"

He leans right in then, so close Sam recoils from his rancid breath. "Yup, Missy and me, we sure love that boy. So much it _hurts_. Fact is, I think we might jus' love him to _death_ one of these days."

Sam thinks about Swenson, thinks about the photographs Hudak showed him. He feels his guts heave in earnest, leans over to the side as far as he can without toppling over, and says hi to the remains of his breakfast.

Hudak doesn't want to risk making any noise that might draw attention to herself, so she sits in her spot and imagines herself pacing frantically up and down, cursing loudly. She thinks, idly, how ludicrous it is that she hasn't moved except to take a piss behind a tree and yet she has still managed to work up a fierce appetite simply by drumming her fingers on her thighs. For a second she wonders how many calories she's burned off doing it, studies her legs and thinks they might even look slimmer.

It's too dark now to see what's going on in the Bender camp, though it seemed like karaoke night was in full swing down there earlier. Dean, she guessed, as the voice soared and dipped. She just can't imagine Bender being able to hold a tune like that. Now it's quiet, the darkness barely illuminated by her flashlight, carefully angled and concealed behind a couple of the backpacks so it can't be seen from afar.

The only sound is an owl hooting mournfully from somewhere and she's debating whether she should risk bedding down and trying to get some sleep so she can be sure of a degree of alertness come the dawn.

"Anything to report?" a voice says from the blackness, and Hudak just about stifles a yelp, thanks God she took that leak because there's no doubt in her mind she would have pissed herself in terror if she hadn't.

She can see Bobby's face now in the flashlight's dim glow, a trickle of blood meandering down his left cheek. "Fuck!" she barks, in a loud whisper. "You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack!"

Bobby looks baffled. "But I hooted…" he says, his tone apologetic.

"You _hooted_?" she hisses. "Who the fuck do you think I am, Sheena Queen of the Jungle? If I hear hooting I assume it's a fucking owl, not a friendly."

Bobby gapes with something that looks like a mix of admiration, trepidation and true love shining out of his eyes.

Deep breaths, Hudak thinks, calming breaths. _I'm good_. "What happened to you?" she says, gesturing at his bloody head.

"Tripped over a root," he 'fesses up, with a fair helping of embarrassment. "Heard gunfire, thought the worst, ran like the blazes. Go figure."

"Sam shot the dog," she replies. "It didn't go with Bender… I think it was tied up down there but it got loose."

Bobby huffs out in relief. "You're sure it was the dog?"

"Yep. Point blank, right in the chest, smack in the middle of the lens," she says, brandishing the binoculars. "So we might still get shot by Lee Bender, but at least his dog won't be humping our legs at the time."

"And what about Sam? And Dean?" Bobby prods.

"Bender clocked him… he didn't seem to come round before sundown so I don't know if he's still out cold or not. Dean was up and about. Singing, in fact."

 _Huh?_ is written all over Bobby's face.

"I've had plenty of time to put it all together sitting here," Hudak continues. "There was a bag at the Bender farm, packed with meds – lithium, tranquilizers, antidepressants, you name it. My guess is they took it and they've been drugging your boy to keep him under… that could be why he was so confused when you saw him."

Bobby rubs his brow hard. "That'd do it, especially if he took a knock to the head. Jesus…"

"The meds are Lee Bender's, according to the town doctor," Hudak clarifies. "He wouldn't really say what's going on with Bender, but lithium is used to treat bipolar disorder as far as I know."

"Christ," Bobby breathes. "These drugs, they must have side effects."

She nods. "Hence the singing. Classic rock medley with some nursery rhymes thrown in. Sounded like a heck of a trip, so I'm guessing the aftermath may not be pretty." She leans over to her pack, rummages inside and pulls out a small first aid kit, motions Bobby closer and tips the cap off his head. "Well it isn't deep but it's a heck of a goose egg," she murmurs as she cleans up the wound, tapes a wad of gauze over it. "You'll live."

He flops down next to her, groans. "Funny how bein' knocked out cold for hours at a time don't make you any less tired," he says.

Hudak sighs, long and heavy, reaches up a hand to each cheek, pulls down so she looks almost demonic in the flashlight's glow. "Sam may have told you this," she starts.

Bobby props himself up on his elbows, and Hudak can hear the foreboding in his voice. "Told me what?" he says gruffly.

"If Bender isn't taking his meds, then Dean will have been… at risk," she says softly.

"Hell yeah," Bobby parries. "Don't forget, I saw the kid."

"The town doctor was treating Bender," Hudak presses on softly. "He had some sort of situation going on with him… a _thing_."

Bobby's eyes widen. "A thing," he says flatly.

Hudak nods. "We found pictures." She knows she's dancing around it, can't help thinking of the look on the old man's face when he'd thought the remains she'd spoken of might be Dean.

His voice is strangely gentle when he replies. "In my experience, when something's hard to say there ain't nothing gonna salve the wound," he says. "Cut to the chase, Deputy. I've known that kid since he was five. I need to know what might have been going on if I'm to help him out the other end of this mess."

He has sort of guessed, Hudak thinks. But it doesn't make the words come any easier, and sure as heck doesn't make them any less hard for the man to hear.

He doesn't talk for a while, but an hour or so later, she asks him about what he said. "You knew Dean right after their mom died, then?"

He nods, smiles weakly. "You should have seen him. Heartbreaker, even then. All blond and big eyes, like a girl. Spitting image of his mom… John had pictures of her. It was hard for the man, seeing her mirror image in front of him all day every day. He kinda withdrew from Dean emotionally. Kid never spoke a word first year I knew him, just followed me around helping me fix cars when he wasn't taking care of Sam."

She huffs at that. "He talked up a storm when he came to Hibbing. He's pretty persuasive."

Bobby laughs. "He's that alright. But he's a good kid, the best. He gives every bit of himself. There's something about him. He's special." He says it unashamedly, and Hudak thinks she can see the gleam of tears in his eyes. "I love that boy like he's my own."

"And Sam?" she fishes.

The man shrugs. "Just never the same with him, Kathleen. Not that I don't love the kid – I do. But he was always so self-possessed. Intimidating. Not intentionally… just had that bearing, that confidence about him. Didn't seem like he needed anyone, not even his brother. Dean _needed_ – and it's good to be needed."

 _Dean needs them now_ , Hudak thinks. _Sam too_. Like her own brother had needed her without her even knowing. "We're getting him out of there," she says suddenly. "Tomorrow. We're getting them both out of there."

Something is gently tapping Sam's foot and he kicks it away, irritated.

It taps again, and then, "Hey, Mister," the tapping whispers.

Sam's eyes fly open, and Dean is sitting there, just a few feet away.

"Help me sit up?" Sam ventures cautiously, and to his amazement Dean complies, moving quietly behind him and heaving him upright, although the effort produces a sharp gasp and a squeak of pain that Dean doesn't quite manage to conceal.

Sam glances over beyond his brother, to the slumbering figures of Bender and the kid. Higher up, the sky is lighter, light that heralds the dawn, and Sam knows that this is his chance, maybe the only one he'll get, his chance to persuade his brother to set him loose and come with him.

But _softly, softly, catchy monkey_.

"Do you know who I am?" he whispers, as loudly as he dares.

Dean shakes his head.

"Do you know who you are?"

Dean nods.

"You think you're Gabe… their brother."

A nod, _yes_.

Sam thinks a minute. How to do this without sending Dean into a panic? "I lost my brother," he starts, and he sees Dean's eyes widen. "Not lost, dead," he adds hastily. "Lost _misplaced_. He wandered off. I've been looking for him. I miss him. I love him."

Dean looks clueless and Sam thinks that it's so damned surreal to be talking to him in this way, wants to scream who he really is at Dean, be free with one bound, scoop his brother up under one arm and race back to the car to strap him in, drive for days, and never let him out of his sight again.

"Do you think maybe you got it wrong about being his brother?" Sam continues, nodding over at Lee. "Because you look a lot like my brother."

No reaction, and Sam grabs at straws. "Tell me about the things you did with your brother when you were kids."

Dean seems to consider, but says nothing.

Sam sighs. "Well, what about—"

"I took care of my brother," Dean whispers. "Our dad… Pa… he never seemed to be there much. I took care of him. He was so small, see? Couldn't do for himself. So I did for him."

"But Lee…" Sam says. "He's bigger than you. He's older. Didn't he care for you?"

Dean thinks for a minute. "No…" he says softly. "No. No one did for me. I was the big brother."

"How can you be the big brother when _he's_ the big brother?" Sam jumps in quickly. "Do you think maybe you were someone else's big brother?"

"Missy. Her big brother…?" Dean suggests, but Sam knows he's onto something because he can hear the question mark as his brother's voice trails off.

"My big brother took care of me," Sam races out, urgent now. "He rescued me from a fire, carried me out of the house… do you remember that? Do you remember how my big brother took care of me when I was a kid? Made sure I went to school, fed me?"

Dean is shaking slightly, getting agitated. "My name's Gabe," he snaps suddenly, and he shuffles further away from Sam.

"No! Gabe! Don't go, don't go… I just wanted to ask you if you know where my brother is, if you saw him…" Sam's getting desperate now, all too aware of their rising voices. "Gabe, do you remember how my brother, my brother _Dean_ came out to the Bender farm to look for me, how he saved me? How we ran through the woods and how one of the dogs caught up to you and hurt you… Dean, do you remember? Please tell me you remember! You remember how the dog—"

And Sam loses him, just like that.

Dean scuttles back much like he did the day before, his face devastated. "You killed my dog!" he yells.

In the background Sam sees Lee Bender erupt from the blankets, and he knows this will end badly.

"Gabe!" the big man hollers. "What the fuck're you doin' over there, boy?"

Dean jumps to his feet, wincing in pain, looks back and forth from Sam to Bender, his mouth opening and closing like he's a fish out of water, and nothing coming out.

"Get outta the way, Gabe," Bender shouts, and Sam doesn't know if he's imagining it or not but he could swear that Dean steps slightly in front of him as Bender bears down on them.

He isn't imagining it.

"No," Dean says, and Bender grinds to a halt so abruptly that Sam almost expects to see ribbons of cartoon dirt curl up under the toes of his boots.

"Say what?" he asks, genuinely nonplussed.

"Um… _no_?"

And Sam can see that Dean is terribly unsure, that his body is alive with tremors, can hear from his voice that he's desperately afraid. "Dean," he yells, and then, "Gabe! Gabe! Get out of the way, Gabe. Do as he says! Do what Lee says, Gabe… get out of the way, do it now…"

It's to no avail. Dean – Gabe – stands his ground.

Lee Bender's face slowly turns beet red and his breathing rate increases. And Sam knows this man is going to kill his brother.

It's over with the first punch; even though Dean seems to be fighting back this time, Sam knows he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell, can see it in the stiff way Dean moves, the way he favors his leg, left arm, torso, the way the twists and ducks that always used to be so fluid are uncoordinated and clumsy. He's going to die right there, in front of Sam's eyes, the last breath beaten out of him, and Sam can hear himself whimpering as he pulls ever harder at the ropes, feeling blood slick his wrists as Bender poleaxes his dazed brother before sinking to his knees beside Dean, flipping him over onto his belly, face buried in the dirt, and Dean is crying out now in distress as Bender starts pulling at his tattered pants, hauling them down past his hips. "Teach you a fuckin' lesson boy," the man screams. "Messin' with me, messin' with my head."

Bender starts tugging at his belt buckle, and Sam sees the girl, Missy, hopping about behind them agitatedly. "Do something!" he yells at her, and the tears he can feel running down his face are a brutal reminder of what happened when his brother was taken, as he pulls now with all his might, not feeling the ropes give at all. " _Missy_!" he cries. "Do something – he's gonna… do something! _Fuck!_ Help him! Or cut me loose! _Cut me loose_!"

The commotion has them both up on their feet and Bobby grabs the binoculars, squints through them, with just enough light to see by as the sun's first rays cast the sky pink.

"Jesus!" he spits, and he launches himself over the ridge as Hudak picks up her gun and follows him.

Sam can see his brother looking right at him but Dean isn't crying out any more. He seems catatonic, eyes staring blankly into the middle distance like he isn't even there as Bender fumbles with his pants.

All of a sudden the girl is right in front of Sam, eyes cold, knife in hand.

"God! _Don't_!" he yelps, flinching as he cranes to see past her, needing to see even if she is about to slash his throat and bleed him out.

And then she's behind him, cutting the rope.

Sam streaks at Lee Bender in much the same way Bender's pitbull had streaked at his brother, feeling what he imagines is a similar primeval thirst to rip him to shreds, sparing a glance to see the girl dragging his insensible brother out of range.

Bender rises to meet him and Sam feels the man's nose crunch, spits blood, ducks, hangs a right straight in Bender's kisser, feels satisfaction at the thought that his knuckles are going to resemble Bender's after this, that Bender's body is going to bear testament to that fact.

Bender falls to his knees, throws himself on his belly, and Sam thinks, _not so fast_ , follows him down, and then almost subconsciously, he's aware that Bender is reaching for the gun beside his bedroll. And Sam feels something cool, hard and familiar, right there at his fingertips on the ground, and it's totally reflexive, smooth, practiced, without any conscious thought or intent, as he brings his brother's Bowie up in a graceful arc, buries it in the man's back, and twists it.

He sinks back on his heels, panting.

For a second, it's totally silent.

And then Sam is aware of Bobby crashing into the campsite, followed by Hudak. He's even aware of the fact that the girl has vanished, melting into the woods at some point.

But what he's most aware of is Dean crawling over, scrabbling for the rifle Bender had been reaching for, and pointing it at him.

"No-no-no-no-no," he's wailing. "My brother… my family… _my family_ …"

Sam is speechless, hears Bobby talking to Dean, a stream of soothing words, "Dean, put the gun down boy, your brother's fine, it's over now, put the gun down…"

And Sam suddenly thinks to himself that Bobby is wrong, because this isn't Dean, it's _Gabe_ , and Sam isn't Gabe's brother. He sees Gabe grow ever more frantic, start to wave the gun around, pointing at all of them in turn, pointing it back at Sam. He sees Gabe's eyes fix on him, widen slightly. It's an expression of intent, a decision, and Dean is raising the rifle up.

And Sam hears the crescendo of gunfire as Kathleen Hudak shoots his brother.

**13\. Don't Look Now**

Blood sprays up from Dean's right shoulder in a Zapruder-film cloud. He reels, and his eyes widen slightly, a _well, I sure didn't expect that_ look if Sam has ever seen one. When he collapses, he doesn't topple – his body sort of concertinas in on itself, as he falls to his knees and then his butt, slumping, and then listing slowly backwards.

Sam is still resting on his heels, dazed, looking from his brother to the handle of the Bowie protruding from between Bender's shoulder blades and then back to Dean as Hudak sprints past him and slides her way to Dean as if he's final base in a record-breaking home run.

It takes Bobby a few more seconds to react, and he pauses to check Bender for any signs of life on his way to Dean, although Sam knows damn well he severed the man's spinal cord with surgical precision when he twisted the blade.

Bobby is clearly distressed as he crouches down beside Dean and takes his hand, using his other to stroke Dean's hair, trying to reassure him, soothe the desperate, pained sounds he's making.

Hudak reaches over to the pile of blankets, grabs a handful, pulls them up over Dean as he shivers, crawls down to his boots and starts arranging more of the fabric under his feet, bundled up to elevate his legs.

"No," Bobby barks, apparently regaining his senses. "Not for this kind of wound, it's too near his chest, it could make the bleeding worse." He pulls Dean up slightly, glances underneath. "Dammit. No exit wound." He rips off his jacket, then his shirt, folds the shirt into a thick wad, lays it on the wound. "Press down on that, hard – even if it hurts him."

Sam sees it all of this as if he's watching a movie, feeling somehow detached from it. It's a scene he has witnessed more times than he wants to remember, seeing his father poking around inside his brother's writhing flesh, barking at Sam to _hold him down for Christ's sake_ , hearing the same strangled, relentless whine his brother is making now as Hudak leans on his shoulder and Dean's fingers rake convulsively at the dirt.

Then Bobby is right there, squatting down in front of Sam, calm but purposeful. "Sam, head up to where the bags are, we need Kathleen's pack – it has a first aid kit."

Sam stares back at him, not really registering the words, and then Bobby is snapping blood-scarlet fingers in front of Sam's face. "Sam, the packs. We need them. Head up to the ridge boy, fetch them down. We need to get your brother patched up to get him out of here."

"But I don't," Sam stutters. "I…"

"Sam," Bobby says gently, low-key. "You need to get a grip, boy. This isn't gonna help your brother."

It's like Bobby got hold of a baseball bat-sized hypodermic with a billion ccs of common sense in it and shot it straight in Sam's butt cheek, and he's upright and darting up the ridge.

Bobby crosses back to Hudak, lifts her hands away, peels back the wadded fabric, now soaked with the blood that still pumps from the hole the slug made. "Christ," he mutters. "That should be slowing down."

"No exit wound, you said," Hudak says, her voice a few octaves higher with nerves. "That means the bullet's still in there. It needs to come out…"

"Well, yeah… but… oh, Jesus. _Dean_ …" Now Sam isn't there to see, Bobby has to stop for a minute, sit back and take stock. And then he's all business again, though his mouth is a handful of dust and he can feel his hands shake like they're doing the rumba. "There's no telling what damage might have been done inside him," he says, keeping his tone steady. "Keep pressing on that, Kathleen. If it hit bone, which is likely, there could be bullet fragments in there, bone splinters too."

He sees the question in her eyes. "Combat medic," he continues. "Bullet will have taken some cloth in there too, and his clothes aren't exactly fresh out of the wash." He sighs, looks her straight in the eye and levels with her. "He's bleeding more than he should be. This could get real dicey, real soon."

Hudak speaks in a compressed whisper Bobby has to strain to hear. "I didn't have a choice, did I? You saw him. He had a bead on Sam, he was going to shoot… rifle at point blank. They tell us if we have a clear shot we have to take out the hostile."

Bobby places one hand over hers where they're pressing down on the wound, and forces his voice to come out glacier-calm. "Look at me, Kathleen. And listen. The boy isn't right in the head, he was mad as a cut snake. He didn't know who he was, where he was or what he was doing. I am as sure in my mind as I can be that he was about to shoot his brother. And if I'd had a gun I would have plugged him myself." Somewhere in the back of his mind Bobby doesn't really know if that's true or not. But his words have the desired effect on Hudak, who starts to breathe easier, closes her eyes and exhales through pursed lips as she composes herself.

Sam jogs back into the campsite, a pack on his back and the others in each hand, dumps them beside Dean's prone body, kneels down now and clasps his brother's hand while Bobby moves to locate the medkit.

Dean's grip is surprisingly tight and he's staring right up at Sam, his eyes ablaze with pain. His lips are moving and Sam leans down to hear what he's saying.

"Dn… hrt… me…"

Christ, that hits Sam right in his gut and sends an ice pick through his heart. He feels his eyes brimming. "Dean, please," he mutters. "Don't. We won't hurt you, I promise… Dean."

Bobby is back then, kneeling opposite, and he taps Sam's arm, draws his attention away from Dean for a second.

"Bullet's still in there. I ain't gonna lie to you kid, that's bad news given his condition."

The words thud on Sam's ears like clods of earth on a coffin lid, but he steels himself, swallows hard. "What do we do?"

"We need to get it out but we can't do it here," Bobby replies. "So we'll need to do some triage and then get him in the cart and out of here back up to the trailhead, so we can load him in the truck."

Sam nods wordlessly.

"You'll need to help hold him down for me Sam," Bobby continues softly. "It isn't gonna be easy for him…in fact it's gonna hurt like a mother. Can you handle it?"

Sam finds himself just staring at Bobby, struck dumb, so it seems, shakes himself mentally as Bobby cants his head.

"Sam. Are you with me? You know what you're doing, boy?"

Same nods again. "I'm… okay. I'm good now."

"That's great, kid," Bobby says, and Sam thinks he might never have been so reassured to have Bobby close by. He bites his lip, brings his knee up to rest on Dean's left shoulder, immobilizing him. He remembers the burn and hopes to God it's healed by now, because the thought he might be causing his brother even more pain has bile searing the back of his throat.

Dean's wise to them: his eyes widen for a second and his breathing speeds up even more as Bobby lifts off the fabric blotting the wound. "The bleeding isn't as bad, that's good…" the old man breathes almost to himself, as he starts to rip at the filthy sweater and the layers underneath with his Bowie, slitting a large enough opening so he'll be able to get to the wound.

"N-n-n-hrts… stp… _hrts_ …"

Dean's hand has found its way up and around onto Sam's thigh and it's patting and scratching the denim weakly as he starts making choked noises of sheer misery. Sam cups his brother's cheek with one hand, lays the other on his forehead, finds it ice-cold and clammy under his touch. "Dean," he soothes. "Dean. Look at me. Look at me."

But Dean is so agitated now he can't seem to hear Sam, he's grinding his head back and forth on the rock-hard ground, manages to pull his right arm free of Hudak's grip and hit out at her.

"Kathleen, grab his arm and hold it down," Bobby barks. "Put your knee on it, like Sam's doing." He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a second. "Brace yourselves." And he pours a stream of hydrogen peroxide right into the bullet hole, Dean's cries a grim soundtrack of agony, before pressing a thick wad of gauze over it, taping it in place and sitting back on his heels. "It's done, for now."

Sam lifts his brother into his arms and Dean clings to him, sobbing and fisting a handful of Sam's shirt. "Dean, it's done," he whispers into his brother's grimy hair. "It's done."

"Gabe," his brother insists weakly. "Gabe."

Sam's heart sinks. "Gabe," he murmurs. "It's gonna be okay, Gabe. It's okay. No more… No more." And he hates himself for the lie, knows it will be so much worse next time.

Bobby is up and at it already, leading the mules, one at a time, from the opposite side of the campsite and hitching them to the cart. "Kathleen," he calls over. "We need the blankets and sleeping bags in the bed of the cart to put him on."

"The medical bag too," Sam tells her hoarsely. "We'll need to know whatever they've been giving him."

Hudak jumps up, stops briefly next to Bender's body: the elephant in the campsite. "What about Bender?" she says, glancing over at Sam uneasily.

"We leave him," Sam tells her automatically. Seeing her doubtful expression, he shakes his head. "We don't have the time to deal with him. Dean doesn't have the time."

Hudak nods. She roots in her pack, pulls out a tee and wraps her hand in it, reaches for the Bowie. She tugs hard, feels resistance as it grinds through spinal vertebrae on its outward journey and feels slightly sick as it comes free with an audible sucking sound. She carefully wraps it in the tee, puts it in her pack as Bobby maneuvers around her and crosses over to Sam.

"How's he doing?" the old man asks, squatting down beside them.

Sam stares down. "I don't think he knows me," he murmurs.

Dean is conscious, but his eyes are dull and don't seem to be focusing on anything. His face is ash gray and sheened with sweat, and now Sam is looking properly he sees that there is a partly healed gash on Dean's head, flakes of dried blood in his hair and a smattering of blood flecks on his temple and cheek. His clothes are a health hazard, filthy and stinking, and Sam feels an ice-cold chill track up his spine as he wonders what's underneath, knows they'll be finding out soon enough when they get Dean somewhere safe, warm and undercover.

"We need to get your brother in the cart now, Sam," Bobby cuts into his thoughts. "You gonna be able to lift him? Need me to get his legs?"

Sam closes his arms protectively around Dean. "I got it, Bobby."

Rising to his feet is horrifyingly easy. His brother must have shed twenty pounds, he can see the wrist poking out of Dean's sleeve looks way more fragile than it should for his height. Dean makes a tiny sound as he rises, seems to lack the strength even to cry out now. Sam cradles him in his arms, easily bears his reduced weight over to the cart, and eases him in onto the bedding.

"He's shocky," Bobby warns, as he fusses over Dean, pulling the blankets up. "Get close up to him, keep him as warm as you can… Can you lay his head up on your leg? Might help his breathing to keep him upright."

Sam wedges himself in next to Dean's head and shoulders, lifts them gently up onto his bent knee. His brother's hand is questing in thin air, and he grasps it, feels it hold on tight.

Hudak is scanning the campsite, making sure they have everything. She's making her way over to the cart when she stops dead in her tracks and wheels around, her eyes sharp and alert. "Where's the girl?"

Fact is, Missy thinks, she ain't too sorry to see the back of that Lee Bender.

"Might have been different if you started takin' your happy pills again," she gripes out loud from her tree. "Butcha wouldn't listen, just got jumpy as a pea on a fuckin' drum and 'bout as friendly as a barbed wire fence."

She doesn't have a clear view into the campsite but she's close by enough to hear Gabe's clamor and that other boy talking to him. "Gabe, it's _Gabe_ ," she seethes, and she can feel her rage simmering inside her. Like a corked volcano, her Pa used to say, and she can hear hiss voice now, clear in her head, _gotta hold onto that rage, Missy, let it cool down so you're like ice inside, girl. An' that's when you start to make your plans. Best plan's the one that's freezin' cold, girl. Cold like the north side of a moonlit gravestone in January…_

Missy hugs onto her tree.

Watches.

Waits.

They follow a different trail than the hiking route they used getting to the campsite and Hudak reckons it's direct enough to cut several hours off the journey. The mules are trotting along as quickly as Bobby dares urge them, conscious as he is of their precious cargo, and he thinks they're making pretty good time. But he has this itch between his shoulder blades and he's been in the game long enough not to ignore it.

He leans over to Hudak, who's lost in thought next to him on the seat. "You ever get that feeling like you're being watched?" he says quietly, mindful of Sam crouched behind him, talking softly to his worryingly quiet brother, not wanting to panic the boy.

Hudak grimaces. "No… but then I've never done the whole Deliverance thing before."

Bobby snorts, despite his itch, suddenly thinks what the Deliverance scenario might mean for Dean, and feels queasy.

"Sam says the kid cut him loose before she disappeared," Hudak adds. "She must still have the knife. And she had a rifle too, she was holding it on Sam before Bender clocked him." She glances around, scanning the trees that line the rough trail. "It's like when someone mentions head lice and you start scratching," she mutters. "Now I'm imagining a kid version of Rambo, wearing a necklace made from the Bender tooth collection."

Bobby nudges her with his elbow. "Let's keep some perspective. She's just a kid."

"More like a demon seed," Hudak snaps. "The little brat took me out with a skillet and locked me in the trunk of my squad car."

Bobby considers it for a moment. "Stay frosty," he tells her.

Dean seems calmer now, listless even, though Sam knows it's likely due to shock and blood loss. He has been keeping up a steady stream of comfort nonsense, stroking his brother's hair, rocking him gently, breathing him in even though he smells worse than a crate full of tomcats. In his heart Sam knows this isn't Dean he's holding in his arms, it's Gabe, but he still drones on, reliving childhood adventures, treasured memories of the all-too-short years when his brother was his brother and not a parent weighed down by the millstones of care and responsibility. He doesn't even know if Dean – Gabe – can hear him. But he notices that every time he stops talking, pauses to clamp his eyelids together and will away the tears, the hand fisting his shirt grips tighter, tugs slightly.

Sam knows his brother is deeply shocked; his waxy pallor is even more sickly, his lips are tinged bluish, he's sweating, and Sam's gentle fingers find his pulse rapid and weak each time they rest on his neck. The dressing is already soaked through with blood. Sam knows they can't move any faster, knows also that doing so could make all the difference between life and death.

"How long to the trailhead?" he calls up to Bobby from the cart.

"Couple hours, I reckon."

"He's bleeding pretty heavily, Bobby. I think we might need more padding on here."

Bobby curses, pulls up, glances back and frowns. "I don't think he should be bleeding that much," he decides. "It slowed down back at the campsite."

"We were pressing down on it then," Hudak offers, twisting and clambering into the cart bed beside Dean to get a closer look. "We're definitely going to need to pack this more…" She hauls her backpack over, sorts through and finds the medkit, wads up gauze. "Hold that on there."

Sam presses down, hears the slightest whimper in response as Hudak forgoes the tape and straps it all in place, winding the bandage over and around Dean's clothing.

She sits back on her heels, seems to be considering something, reaches for the black bag and tips out the contents, pokes through them. "Sometimes drugs can increase bleeding," she murmurs, and then she snatches at one of the bottles, holds it up for closer inspection. "Damn."

"What?" says Sam, Bobby an echo.

"Warfarin," she says bluntly, holding up a bottle.

"Rat poison?" Bobby snaps. "What the hell would that be doing—"

"Not rat poison," Hudak cuts in. "Well it can be… but not in this case. It's a blood thinner, it's given to people who've had blood clots or strokes. It's a pretty common medication."

The puzzle pieces link together. "You think that's why he's bleeding so much," Sam says slowly. "You think he's taken it."

"Well it's a heck of a coincidence," she replies as she starts putting the pills back in the bag. "God knows what his tox screen is going to show up once we get him to the hospital."

Sam's keeps his response quiet but firm. "No hospital."

Hudak pauses. "Excuse me?"

"No hospital."

Hudak looks from Sam to Bobby, back and forth between them for about thirty seconds. "Okay," she says then, deadly calm. "I don't know what's going on here Sam, but I know your brother's going to be a longshot for that retirement home in Florida if he doesn't get to a hospital in the next few hours. So I sincerely hope this is negotiable."

"Non-negotiable."

Hudak looks to Bobby, raises an eyebrow. "Bobby you've seemed relatively sane this far. Please tell me you're not going along with this."

Sam glances up to see Bobby redden slightly and look down at his feet.

"Right, so we aren't going to take your homicidal, amnesiac, pitbull-mauled, drug-addicted, half-starved and shot brother to the hospital," Hudak says, with a forced, panicked brightness that has Sam suddenly thinking he should paint himself white to deflect the blast. "Well then, what is the plan, guys? Pick a plot and pay the preacher?"

Sam glowers. "My brother isn't dying."

"And you know this how?" she barks. "Because of your medical degree?"

He growls back at the woman. "We can't risk taking him to a hospital. I can't tell you all the details – there's no time. You have to trust me on this. We've been through this kind of thing before with Dean. Bobby can handle it."

Hudak remains aghast. "Oh, your brother makes a habit of being abducted, drugged and brutalized, does he?"

"Kathleen," Bobby interjects. "Sam's right, we can't risk—"

"Don't you Kathleen me," she cuts him off. "This is insane. I know he's in some kind of trouble but Jesus… you must know we can't risk not taking him to a hospital." She looks back at Sam, leans in closer, keeps the decibel level as low as she can while still making her displeasure felt. "Fuck, Sam, look at him. He needs medical attention. We don't know what's hidden under the clothes, what drugs they've been giving him… if he took the warfarin, he could bleed out if you go in for the slug. And it's not just that." She scrubs a hand through her hair, her eyes slanting down and her voice dropping to a confidential whisper. "You saw the photographs. He needs a rape kit, an HIV test."

Sam knows all this, though the thought of the rape kit and what it implies makes his stomach turn handsprings. He doesn't reply and after a moment she sits back, her shoulders slumping as she visibly deflates and throws up her hands, resigned. "Well, what is the plan then?"

Sam lets out his breath. "We get him to the truck, get him back to your place. Please."

She shrugs.

"You said the doctor did a moonlight flit. So maybe there are medical supplies at his office that we can use."

She snorts. "So I can add grand larceny to aiding and abetting a known felon."

Sam meets her gaze levelly. "Please, Kathleen. Please help us. Please help my brother. He's a good man. He's all I have. I wouldn't play with his life if it didn't have to be this way."

He sees how she bites her lip, sees a muscle twitch in her jaw. "I know you're telling me the truth, Sam, and I want to help your brother," she says. "But this isn't helping your brother. And I can't help thinking his injuries just got upgraded to fatal."

And Sam plays the ace he's had tucked up his sleeve since the day this mess started. "This wouldn't have happened in the first place if you'd given us a ride like Dean asked."

Hudak sucks in a horrified breath, shakes her head. "That was really harsh Sam. And unnecessary."

She crabs her way around him, pulls herself back up onto the seat of the cart, and in the same instant as Sam glimpses something off the trail, something that bobs up, down, up again, that disturbs the undergrowth as it moves to the left of them, Hudak hollers, "Down, get down," diving sideways and down to the ground.

Sam reacts instantly, throwing himself over his brother's prone body as gunfire blasts around them. The mules shriek and the cart rocks wildly as the animal Missy Bender didn't just shoot bucks wildly in its harness.

"Dammit!" Sam hears Bobby snarl out, and in the next moment the old man appears down at the foot of the cart, grabbing at Dean's boots. Before Sam knows what's happening, Dean is being hauled away, out onto his feet, where he flops uselessly in the older man's arms, barely conscious.

"We're leaving!" Bobby hollers, and Sam nods, hops nimbly over the side of the cart, scoops up his brother in his arms as easily as if he's lifting a small child, and staggers into the trees.

"Do you think the kid has ammo?" Sam yells as Bobby ranges alongside him, and another gunshot answers his question as Hudak sprints in from his right, steeplechasing over a tree stump.

"Stop a minute," she shouts between pants. "Portable stretcher… in my backpack."

Sam sinks to his butt, Dean's now-limp head lolling on his chest as Hudak pulls a folded tube of vinyl from her pack, shakes it loose and lays it out on the soil. Sam carefully places his brother on it, grabs the loops at Dean's head while Bobby heaves up at the foot end, and they set off at a steady jog.

"Head for the truck," Hudak calls. "I'll cover our ass."

They plow on, as careful as they can be not to bounce Dean off the stretcher, while Hudak's service revolver blats off rounds back in the trees behind them.

Hudak's been hunting, knows how to sit and wait until that rabbit or that deer is smack bang in the middle of the crosshairs. She isn't squeamish, thinks that's how it is: mankind, top of the food chain. She wears leather boots, has a fur-trimmed parka, likes her steak so rare she tells the server to just cut off its head and wipe its ass. She's tough as they come and she can take out those bunnies and Bambis without a second thought.

Shooting at a child isn't the same as shooting at an animal.

Missy's been hunting, knows how to sit and wait until that long-pig is smack bang in the middle of the crosshairs.

Missy has been bait too.

So once she's out of ammo she hops, skips and jumps around the _bitch cop_ , ducking up and down, pitching rocks here and there, disturbing the undergrowth at points north, south, east and west. She knows exactly when to give that cry of pain and then crouch, hidden from view.

A few minutes pass, and Missy slinks lower into the bushes as the cop moves slowly, cautiously, into sight, ranges forward a few steps, crouches and touches the ground, raises fingers dipped in blood.

The woman stand up, calls out cautiously. "Missy! Are you there? We can help you, but you need to show yourself." She pauses for a long moment. "Missy…"

She listens. Then she turns, trots back in the direction she came.

Missy creeps out from her safe place, smiles as she toes the small puddle of blood on the soil. She considers the bloody, cloth-wrapped bundle she's holding. "I sure appreciate you lending me a hand like that, Lee," she smiles, and throws the bundle into the bushes.

And then She follows. She takes her time because she has them right where she wants them.

And she's going to rescue her brother if it's the last thing she does.

**14\. Let This Boy Die Like a Man**

Sam and Bobby set a steady pace jogging through the woods, Sam wishing he'd taken the foot end of the stretcher so he could keep an eye on how his brother's doing. It's silent behind them, the gunfire tailing off.

"We should stop and wait for her," Bobby calls between pants.

Sam keeps moving, thinks he isn't sure whether it wouldn't just be a heck of a lot easier for him to do this his way if it turns out that Missy Bender gutted Kathleen Hudak back there in the trees, instantly feels a pang of remorse. He feels Bobby dragging on the stretcher, slowing down.

"Sam. We need to make sure she's okay," the old man says, slowing now to a brisk walk that forces Sam to do the same.

"We need to keep moving," Sam snaps. "Get to the truck."

Bobby is walking even slower now. "Just a few minutes Sam. We owe her. _You_ owe her."

 _My brother doesn't fucking owe her_ , Sam thinks, but he pushes it down again.

There's a rustling noise behind them and both men drop to the ground as one, instantly alert, as Hudak canters out of the trees, pack in hand.

"How's he doing?" she says, and Sam knows instantly that she's avoiding.

"Where's the kid?" he asks, and the expression on her face says it all.

Dean is watching them through half-lidded eyes. He's shivering and it suddenly occurs to Sam that they left the blankets behind in the cart. He slips his jacket off, covers his brother, Bobby and Hudak doing the same. He clutches Dean's hand for a minute, leans down and croons words of comfort in his brother's ear. He doesn't even really know if Dean can hear him.

"Trailhead's a couple of miles further on," says Hudak.

There's a silence, an uncomfortable one.

"Let's get moving," Bobby says.

Missy knows these woods like the back of her hand, remembers how when she was tiny her Pa would take her, Lee and Jared deep into the hinterland and leave them there to find their own way home through miles and miles of endless trees, where wolves howled sorrowfully in the distance and moonlight peeped through the dense canopy, casting patches of silvery light on the inky blackness.

She remembers how Jared would cuss and Lee would sometimes cry, but she, Missy, would pirouette ahead of her brothers, crunching the dead leaf litter under her feet, digging the toes of her boots into the soft loam, breathing in the scent of the leaves, climbing into the lower branches and pressing her cheek against the rough bark of oak, elm, maple, birch, aspen, wanting to melt into it, feeling it soothe her soul.

Missy can find her way through the woods in the dark and blindfolded.

She pirouettes ahead of her brother.

Sam stands in appalled silence, can't believe it.

Hudak takes a few paces forward, drops her pack. "That's not fair," she says, and then spins and screams it into the trees. " _That's not fucking fair!_ "

The truck is sunk into the wet soil on its wheel rims, tires mutilated, slashed to ribbons.

Sam feels weary, knows his voice sounds it. "Bobby, is there any possibility we can—"

"Not a chance, boy," the old man says, sounding just as defeated.

They place their cargo carefully on the ground, and Sam sits down next to Dean, rests his chin on his knees, thinks how fucking sick he is of trees.

His brother's breath rasps in and out, now fast now slow, and he watches them in turn, eyes jumping back and forth between them, no flicker of recognition. And Sam suddenly feels angry, feels an irrational stab of jealousy, wonders for an instant what Dean would have done if it had been him collapsing as if his strings had been cut, the knife severing all connections to his brain, obliterating all conscious thought and motion. And he snaps at him, "Your name isn't Gabe. It's Dean. You're my brother, not his." But all he sees in his brother's eyes is fear, panic, and Dean's breath speeds up again.

Sam reaches out, touches Dean's cheek. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "I'm sorry I scared you."

Dean's fists are clenched against the pain and his lips move as he tries to speak. Sam leans in close, his ear next to his brother's lips.

"Don't… leave… me…" Dean says in a labored whisper. "Woods… dark… scares me… _bad dreams_ …"

Maybe it's some sort of sign, this throwing himself on Sam's mercy. Sam takes his brother's hand, gentles his tone. "I won't leave you," he says.

Bobby unlocks the truck, starts pulling out stuff, rummaging through it, sparing a glance back to Hudak. "Kathleen, look in the glovebox, there should be a cellphone charger there," he says.

 _At fucking last some sanity_ , she thinks, as she pulls out the cable, a pile of old receipts and papers tumbling after it. "Please tell me we're going to use this so we can call the paramedics," she says, low so Sam can't hear her.

Bobby pauses halfway through pulling out a large duffel from under the driver's seat. "It ain't that simple, Kathleen," he says, equally quiet. "There's things about the boys you don't know and you're better off not knowing. Just please believe me when I tell you Sam's right when he says this is the best way."

"But there's more at stake here," she tries, reaching out to support the other end of the duffel as Bobby heaves it out onto the ground, breaking its fall. "What about Bender? His body is back there for any hunter to stumble over. What about the fact I winged his kid sister and left her out there, maybe dying?"

The old man is blunt. "Who knows about this?" he retorts. "Just us. The wolves will take care of Bender, and as to his sister… I got my own kids to be thinking about, Kathleen. I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, but these boys are my priority. _Dean_ is my priority, and I'm not risking him by stopping to look for the kid. I'm just not doing it." He stands. "Now, you think you can handle the stretcher if I carry this bag?"

Hudak runs a palm across her brow, her mind racing. "Yes… but Bobby, Dean, he—"

"Your thinking is all wrong about this, Kathleen," Bobby cuts in. "I appreciate what you said, I do… and I'll talk to Sam about the hospital. But this _kit_ you mentioned… that's for evidence, isn't it?"

She nods. "They'd need to take swabs and—"

"Bender's dead, and this is never gonna be tried, Kathleen," Bobby says patiently. "That's part of the reason Sam doesn't want the hospital. Do you think he would willingly put his brother through any kind of medical examination without Dean's consent? Have the details of this mess browbeaten out of him by the Feds, have him up in a court of law having to tell people what went on here, what Bender might've done to him, before getting carted off to the slammer?"

And she finds she doesn't really have an answer as Bobby continues.

"You know gunshot wounds aren't just in and out of the ER – the cops would be called in, and they'd run Dean's prints…" Bobby pauses, winces as if he's considering that very eventuality. "I know you aren't stupid, and I know you know the boy's about as pure as the driven slush." Another stop, eyes assessing her for a moment and she can see he's debating with himself. "You have no idea how deep it goes," he adds softly. "They'd have him shackled to the bed with a guard at the door ten minutes after we arrived."

Hudak's eyes widen involuntarily and Bobby puts up a hand, placating.

"On my life, he isn't guilty of any crime as you know the word, Kathleen. But he can't be near the police with a rap sheet like his. He can't be incarcerated in the state pen, it would kill him. And what about Sam's chances?"

She doesn't follow, frowns. "What about him?"

Bobby sighs. "I saw the way you pulled that knife out of Bender's back. Covered your hand so's not to get your prints on there, didn't wipe it off, wrapped it up."

And she had, isn't sure if the action was instinctive, the product of fifteen years of law enforcement, or whether it was done with any intent.

It seems Bobby has formed an opinion though. "It was evidence," he says softly. "You were treating it like it was evidence. Just like Dean is evidence to you. Why would you want to be preserving the evidence, Kathleen? Unless you were thinking about turning the kid in?"

The muscles are suddenly tight at the back of her neck and along the line of her shoulders, and Hudak reaches up her hands each side of her neck, rubs at them hard while Bobby keeps pointing that measured look at her.

"And you know, you ain't exactly been following the letter of the law yourself," the man observes after a minute. "Sam told me you shot the old man, and you just shot at the kid. If any of this gets out, which it will if it goes any further, you could be in a whole pile of trouble even if it was self-defense."

For a second Hudak wonders if there isn't a veiled threat in the old man's words. "Don't you trust me?" she says, and for some reason it matters a great deal that he does – that they all do.

"I want to, Kathleen," Bobby tells her, with real feeling. "I sure as heck want to. But you need to stop thinking like a cop for a while."

Her tone sharpens. "It's not just that, Bobby. Don't forget, I spent time with Sam, time with him when he was at his worst and when he drank himself into oblivion every night because he thought his brother was dead. I don't want to see that happen again, for real this time."

Bobby looks her in the eye and his expression softens in a way that might be concession. "Then we need to make sure it doesn't happen."

"Can you do that?" she says. "Can you honestly say you can?"

His face is bleak.

"You have to meet me halfway on this too, Bobby," she says. "At least let me make a call. I know a paramedic at the local hospital. You might be able to go in for the bullet, but we need some advice on the meds. You know it."

He nods slowly. "Consider yourself met."

Bobby ranges up beside Sam, hangs back for a moment as he realizes Sam is talking to Dean, but Sam looks up, motions him closer.

"Still nothing?" Bobby ventures.

"No, he doesn't seem to know me at all. But it's weird… he doesn't seem scared any more. It's like he's familiar with me even if he doesn't know me…"

"Some sort of sense memory maybe?" Bobby muses, and Sam smiles at the thought of him being such a sap at heart, suddenly thinks it's hard for Bobby too, remembering how the old hunter basks in the glow Dean casts just as much as everyone else did. _Does_. He knows that if it came down to him and his brother Bobby would pick Dean without a moment's hesitation. He isn't bitter about it, thinks – _knows_ – that he'd pick Dean over himself too, assuming he had time to do it before his brother threw himself on the flames for him.

When Sam sees what appears to be the edge of the woodland and spies a house in the distance, his heart skips in his chest at the thought this might be the first time things have gone their way, might be somewhere they can take cover and deal with his brother's injuries.

"House to the west of us," he calls ahead to Hudak, who's walking along a few yards ahead of them, taking a turn at hauling the duffel, the heavy bag cutting a swathe through the undergrowth that makes the forced march a tad easier.

They stop, catch a breath. The house looks to be a half-mile or so away.

"What if someone's in?" Hudak says, doubtfully.

"We lock 'em up," Bobby says gruffly. "Can't have anyone raising the alarm."

She doesn't argue and they hang a left, break the tree cover and head for the house. But as they range closer, Hudak slows, squints, stops, drops the duffel in the soil. "It's the Bender place," she says, in disbelief.

And Sam thinks there's a weird symmetry to it, that this place where it all started should be the place where it all comes full circle – the place where it ends.

It's a mess inside, muddy footprints tracked everywhere, furniture tipped over, drawers pulled out and upended as the Feds combed the joint. Hudak disappears for a few minutes, reappears, and announces that _the master bedroom is that way_ as if she's showing them around a model home on some new-build estate in the latest property hotspot. But at least it's relatively clean, the bed neatly made. There's even a shower room attached.

They place Dean carefully on the bed, ease the stretcher out from under him, stand looking at each other for a minute as if none of them knows what to do next.

"We need to eat," says Hudak, finally. "There must still be canned food here somewhere."

She heads off in search of the kitchen, and Bobby parks his butt on the dresser, takes off his cap and wipes his forehead. "Your brother sure believes in doin' things the hard way," he offers, seeing how Dean's eyes are half open again as he monitors them from the bed. He steps forward, sits down on the edge of the bed, Dean's eyes tracking him all the way. "Dean… Gabe… _kid_ ," Bobby says, exasperated. "Can't you just give into it? Let it go? Try to sleep or pass out or something?"

Sam has his own theory about the fact that his brother has apparently been conscious the whole time since he was shot. "Do you think he's hanging on because he's scared to sleep? Scared something might happen if he lets his guard down?"

The subtext is clear and the words seem to weigh heavy on Bobby. "I honestly don't want to think that, Sam," he says. "You know Hudak's right about the hospital," he continues, after a moment. "He's still bleeding and it could be down to that drug she found. Out in the field, standard operating procedure is to leave bullets in until you get to the hospital. If you're set on avoiding that, then me digging it out could be the only way to stop the bleeding, but…"

"The drug could just make him bleed more," Sam finishes.

He sits down on the bed, on the opposite side to Bobby, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. "I can't do that to him Bobby," he says softly. "Hell, even when he was dying of a heart attack he was so jumpy he checked himself out against medical advice. You know Dean. And even if we might be able to give the cops the slip, I can't put him through that… that _kit_ thing they do."

Bobby gives him a sharp look.

"A friend of Jessica's had to have it done," Sam clarifies. "That can't be my decision Bobby, it needs to be his. And he can't make it when he's like this."

Bobby is characteristically dry and not at all reassuring. "Well he won't be able to say yay or nay if he's dead, Sam."

Hudak finds the pantry, rolls her eyes at the fact it's better stocked and tidier than her own despite the fact the house has been effectively abandoned. She busies herself tipping several cans of Chef Boyarde-type pasta slop into a pot, stands and stirs it as it warms up.

She sets down the spoon to ferret through her pack for her cellphone and plugs in the charger warily, fully expecting the clearly pre-war _it's bakelite for God's sake_ plug socket to spit flames and fry her from the inside out.

"Think there might be hot water from those pipes?" Bobby says, coming in from the hallway and hooking a chair out from under the table with his boot.

"I haven't checked… but if you need it for Dean, we should boil it anyway." Hudak dollops some of the pasta into a bowl, sets it down for him. "So... hospital in the near future or not?"

Bobby sucks in a doubtful breath. "Sam's adamant, Kathleen. There's no persuading him, and believe me, I've tried. He's like his damn father. If it were him up there, Dean would take him to hospital."

"Sam isn't on the FBI's most wanted list though, huh?" Hudak says, a weak attempt at humor that raises a weak smile in return.

Bobby chews, swallows. "Maybe Bender left him be," he says suddenly.

"Maybe," Hudak offers noncommittally. She sits down, starts shoveling in her own slop, realizing how hungry she is. "How's this going to work then?" she detours between mouthfuls.

"Clean him up first," says Bobby. And then, more randomly, "Say Kathleen, what blood type are you?"

"A," she says. "Why? And why don't I like the sound of that?"

Bobby sucks a tooth. "Sam's A too. Dean's B, I was hoping you'd be a match for him. I'm O, so I can give him blood, but you two can't. Trouble is I can't give him as much as I'd like and still go in after the slug with steady hands… so I'll have to do it afterwards and we'll have to just hope he doesn't bleed too bad while I'm in there."

This is all moving way too fast for Hudak, as Bobby clears his plate and pushes up from the table.

"Wait," she stops him. "How are you going to do this? How does this work?"

Bobby taps his duffel. "Got all I need in here, Kathleen. I always travel prepared." He walks to the doorway, calls out to Sam. "Get in here and eat boy. We're not doing this until you eat."

He turns, starts opening cupboard doors, pulling out jugs, pans. "Let's get some water boiling. And maybe it's time you call your paramedic buddy."

Gabe's in a world of hurt, knows that's what the old man would call it, struggles to work out exactly why he'd know how the old man thinks, comes up with bupkis.

The boy is sitting next to him, chin on one hand, the other holding his. Gabe gazes at the boy, and the boy gazes into space. And Gabe doesn't know the boy but here's the thing: He feels safe. He feels secure. He feels at peace.

The old man comes to the doorway. "Hudak has a friend, a paramedic. She's gonna call him, see if she can get some pointers for how to tackle the drugs thing."

Gabe sees the boy tense, start to protest, but the old man cuts him off.

"That bag's the kind of opportunity rock singers dream about, Sam. We need to know what we're up against if he's been taking the meds."

"Bender said he was," the boy answers. "He was tripping back in the woods… real acid stuff. He cut me…" He reaches up, rubs the thin slash across his neck. Gabe doesn't remember, feels sudden horror at the thought that he harmed the boy, feels like the monster he knows he is.

The old man approaches, tilts the boy's chin, glances at the cut. "Flesh wound," he says. "He stopped before he did too much damage. Gotta be a good sign, Sam. Hold onto that, boy. We'll get him back."

He turns to leave, glances back. "Grub's up. You need to eat."

"I don't want to leave him by himself—"

"Boy, these last few hours have been fuckin' intense," the old man says. "You need a break. _He_ needs a break. Two minutes. He's so out of it he won't even notice."

Sam gets up, leans down towards Gabe, his tone reassuring, his eyes gentle. "I'll be back real soon."

From nowhere, Gabe thinks of something, and he murmurs it out. "Dave…"

The kid shakes his head. "No… _Sam_. It's Sam. Please try to remember, Dean."

"No…" Gabe whispers, pulling his tired features up into a weak smile. "Di'mon'… Dave… pa'medic…"

The kid frowns, a frown that relaxes into a smile. "David Lee Roth," he murmurs. "He's a paramedic. In New York City. Dean knows that."

Sam bolts his food in less than two minutes, finds his brother is agitated when he gets back. Dean's eyes are huge, he's shaking, plucking at the quilt convulsively with his fingers, and when Sam takes his hand he holds on with a sort of desperation.

"What? What, Dean… Gabe?" he says soothingly, and he thinks he could kick himself for leaving him alone even if it was just a few minutes. "What's wrong?"

He wonders if in his heart his brother knows what's about to go down, if that small part of him that remembers Metallica lyrics, remembers that David Lee Roth moonlights as a paramedic, knows the bullet has to come out.

"B-b-bad dream," Dean whispers. " _Missy_."

"It's okay," Sam comforts as best he can, remembering that as far as Gabe knows, the girl is – _was_ – his sister. "It's gonna be okay."

Bobby comes in, carrying a bowl of steaming water. He sets it on a chair, drags it over beside the bed. "We need to get him stripped down… just to the waist is fine for now," he tells Sam. "Kathleen's bringing more water when she gets off the phone. We need to clean him up before we do this."

Sam nods, pushes up, and he has to forces himself to ignore Dean's timid sounds of worry as he pulls out his knife and starts cutting efficiently through the bloodsoaked dressing and clothing as Hudak appears in the doorway, towels slung across her shoulder, and crosses the room to stand next to Sam, setting a bowl of water that smells of antiseptic on the nightstand next to him.

"Oh my God…" she says, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth.

Under the clothing and the layer of grime, Dean's torso is a Jackson Pollock of bruises and cuts: black, blue, green, purple, yellow, red, scattered about in between older scars that track silvery lines through the kaleidoscope of colors. His lower left arm is bent out of shape, and marked with barely-healed scabs, and there's a vicious looking burn on his left shoulder. Sam holds himself stoic, trying to look without seeing, trying not to think how much they must have been hurting Dean as they made their way through the woods. Opposite him, Bobby reaches down to gently press on starkly visible ribs, and Sam can see the unnatural give of them, hear them crackle under the old man's touch as Dean draws in a sharp breath and curls in on himself slightly.

Hudak suddenly squats down next to Sam, peers underneath Dean to the small portion of his back that she can see with his movement. "What is that?" she wonders. "That mark. Is it dirt, or is it a bruise?"

Sam eases his brother more onto his side, and Hudak's eyes widen, her face going blank with shock for a moment.

"Jesus," she whispers. "That's just… _Jesus_."

The black bruise on Dean's lower back, trailing down under the waistband of his pants, is an almost perfect bootprint. Sam ignores it, reaches for one of the towels still draped loosely over Hudak's shoulder and dips it in the hot water. He starts to wipe at the muck, trying to ignore his brother's feeble panic, the shivering, the teeth chattering, the continuous _no-no-no-no_.

"Kathleen," Bobby says softly. "Did you speak to your paramedic friend? Kathleen?"

Hudak collects herself, exhales a long breath. "He says the peyote and the lithium aren't addictive, well not physiologically anyway… at some point he might crave the release he got from the peyote but he won't be dependent on them."

 _If he lives_ , Sam can't help thinking.

"It's the tranquilizers and the antidepressants that could be the problem, though not straightaway," Hudak goes on. "If he's been using them his body will be reliant on them."

The talking is a distraction for her, Sam knows, and her tone already sounds steadier. Not for the first time he thinks what a damn smart customer Bobby Singer is.

"As far as the warfarin goes, well, anyone who takes it for medical reasons is generally advised to stop three days or so ahead of any surgery… so if he has been taking it, it all hangs on when that was."

No way to find that out, Sam thinks, morosely. No way to find out about anything Dean might have been using.

Bobby must be reading him, because, "You okay, Sam?" he asks, from the other side of the bed.

Sam looks up from where he's rubbing gentle soap circles around the burn on his brother's shoulder. "I am, Bobby," he says, though it doesn't make it any better that the reason is that he's seen his brother worse off than this in his short life.

"Fuck… isn't there anything we can give him to knock him out?" Hudak cries twenty minutes later, her whole weight slung across Dean's lower legs as his upper body arches off the bed by a few inches.

The muscles in his neck are corded as he bites down on a strip of thick leather Bobby quite obviously stows in his impressive medkit for precisely this reason. It's stopping Dean from outright screaming in agony, but it doesn't stop the muffled, tortured cries as Bobby works the forceps in the bullet hole, probing for the hard metal.

Sam has his brother's arms pulled up over his head and is leaning on them, all the time whispering to him, and Hudak knows in her gut that this is something he has done many times before. Bobby's knee is pressed up against Dean's ribcage, wedging him up tight against Sam in an attempt to keep him still, with little effect.

"Can't," Bobby grates out. "Too risky. If he passes out so be it, but I can't knock him out. _Fuck_ , hold him still… there it is, it's just there, in the muscle. I got it. I think I got it…"

Dean's cries raise in pitch, frenzied, and Hudak thinks – _knows_ – that the kid's teeth must be embedded in the leather by now. And finally, blessedly, his eyes roll up into his head and he's still, and she hears the clink of metal as Bobby drops the slug in the bowl on the nightstand. The old man stands abruptly, walks to the bathroom, and she hears retching sounds.

Sam is white-faced, features drawn, breath coming swift and shallow. And then he shakes himself out of it, gets up and makes his way around to where Bobby was sitting. He reaches for the medkit, trickles antiseptic on the wound and starts dressing it with gentle, experienced hands.

"How's the bleeding?" Hudak says, her voice hoarse.

"Difficult to tell just now," he says, evenly. "Guess we'll need to see how fast it soaks through the gauze."

Bobby comes out of the bathroom, starts unpacking a disposable blood transfusion kit. "We need to keep him warm," he says. "This is gonna hit him hard... we'll leave the leg for now, or it'll be too much for him. Let him sleep. Kathleen, see if there's a shirt or something in one of those drawers we can put on him while he's out."

She starts rifling through drawers, pulls out a flannel shirt that's way too big but looks warm, gingerly eases Dean's arms into the sleeves as Sam lifts his brother's limp body slightly so she can slide the fabric underneath.

Bobby sits, starts clenching and flexing his wrist to speed up the process as the bag starts to fill up with ruby-red blood. "I can handle this," he says. "You two should rest." He looks over at Sam. "That's an order, Sam."

Dean is still out cold as Bobby places a lampstand beside the bed, attaches the full bag of blood to the shade with a wooden clothes peg and carefully slides the butterfly needle into his arm. He sits and watches over the boy while gravity does its work, and feels sudden tears prick his eyes.

"God." It chokes out of him. "What did they do to you?"

He chews on his knuckle as sobs well up, and he tries to hold down the flood of emotion that threatens to overwhelm him. "I love you like you're my own, boy," he whispers. "Don't do this to us. Don't do it to _me_."

He sits in vigil, thinks that since he met him, a mute kindergartner who looked like an angel, he can't remember a time when he hasn't wished this boy was his. He watches the steady trickle of red along the tube. _Mine_ , he thinks fiercely, knows that at last, after all these years, his almost-son has Singer blood flowing through his veins.

Sam doesn't sleep for very long, leaves Hudak out of it on the couch, shakes Bobby awake.

The old man blearily checks Dean's vitals, seems satisfied. "Bleeding seems under control," he whispers, pulling aside the shirt Dean is wrapped in and gesturing to the dressing, where a small patch of red has seeped through. "Maybe we're out of the woods," he says, notices the pun, smiles.

Sam sees the red, swollen eyes. "I'll watch him Bobby," he says. "Get some rest."

Bobby trails a finger along Dean's cheek, shuffles out of the room, pausing at the door.

"You smell real bad, Sam," he says, nodding at the shower room.

Something's jostling him.

"Gabe. Time to go, Gabe."

"Dream?" he mutters lazily.

"No dream, Gabe," she says, and she's pulling at his arm now, lighting fires in his shoulder. "Up an' at it, boy, time to go."

"Noooo…" he slurs. "Stay here. Tired…"

"Gabe!" she pokes his shoulder hard and he practically jumps out of his skin, his yelp muffled by her hand clamped over his mouth.

She glares into his eyes. "You need to come with me, Gabe. Family sticks together, an' we're outta here."

The water is just barely warm but it feels good to wash the sweat off, feel the spray hitting his face, his aching shoulders. And Sam remembers the last time he showered was before he knew for sure his brother was still alive, remembers how he screamed out his grief and rage.

He steps out of the cubicle, shivers in the chill, towels down, pulls on his jeans and socks, pushes his feet into his sneakers. He rubs steam off the mirror and stares at himself. He's pale, and his eyes are shadowed, his face lined with exhaustion. He can see the reflection of his brother's amulet staring enigmatically at him from where it sits on his chest.

When he steps out of the bathroom there's a second when he thinks, _please, somebody, pinch me_.

But he isn't imagining the open window, the empty bed.

He slams out of the room, shouting at the top of his lungs, and Bobby and Hudak appear in the hallway, alarm evident on their faces. Sam can barely force out the words but Bobby has already raced past and reels back out of the room as if he's been gut punched.

"He's gone… where's he gone?" Bobby cries.

Sam yells back, "I think she was here! The kid! He said her name, said he had a bad dream about her… She must have been in the room all along… She took him… _Fuck_ , I was only in the shower for ten minutes…"

He bolts out the front door into the night, barechested, hollering back at them, "Flashlights! She'll take him to the woods!"

He runs like he hasn't run since he and his brother were just steps ahead of the dogs, hears his breath heaving, looks wildly around him. They're nowhere to be seen.

He crashes into the trees, can feel tears trickling now, knows his brother's health is so fragile this could be a fatal last straw. His sneakers burn rubber as he screeches to a halt. And he listens. The sound of water in the near distance is horrifying deja vu. But… he hears something else.

A cry in the night.

He sprints in the direction of the sound.

Gabe feels weak, sick, dizzy. He's going as fast as he can, limping along in his sister's wake. He knows it's a mistake to try to cross the river, hangs back for as long as he can as Missy breaches the shallows.

"Gabe, move it!" she yells.

He stumbles in the rocky water, sways, and she keeps pulling. "Come on! We need to stay together, Gabe, family stays together, that's what Pa says."

When she loses her balance she jerks him off his feet and the icy water freezes him right through to the bone. He gasps, holds onto his sister as tight as he can as they speed along in the flow _I've-done-this-before_ until he sees a fallen tree just ahead, surges towards it with all the strength he has left, and feels his hand close around a branch.

Missy is hanging on tight to his other hand, screaming now in real terror, "Gabe, don't let me go! Gabe!"

He can feel his strength fading, pain strobing up his arm and out through the top of his skull. He can feel Missy's hand start to slip.

"Dean! _Dean_!"

And suddenly the boy is there, clambering towards Gabe, reaching his hand out to him as Gabe feels the rotten tree stump start to crack and break up with the extra weight. And suddenly he knows he's going to do it: he's going to let go of his sister and go with the boy. And he feels such relief as he makes his decision, feels a flood of something else as he sees something hanging from a cord at the boy's neck.

Something he knows from his dreams.

Sam can see his brother's white, shocked face out there in the water, can see that he's holding onto the kid with his right hand, knows the pain must be driving daggers through Dean's shoulder.

He crabs along the tree, can feel it shift. "Hold on!" he gasps. "Gabe, hold on."

Sam sees the exact instant when Gabe becomes Dean, when his brother's gaze is caught by something standing out in sharp relief against the pale flesh of Sam's chest, and in that second Sam sees it all come crashing back: sees panic, fear, horror, shame, joy, intense relief, flood his brother's eyes, sees Dean mouth his name, _Sammy_.

The tree judders violently underneath Sam. "Dean! Let her go!" he yells. "You have to grab my hand! Let her go! _Now_!" He can see the kid being tossed around in the white surf at the end of his brother's arm, sees his brother crane to look back at her.

The girl loses her grip, is carried away, screaming.

And suddenly Bobby's words from a couple of days before ring through Sam's head, clear as crystal, _Dean's always had a soft spot for kids… he'd cut off his own arm before he let a kid get hurt on his account..._

Dean looks back at Sam, and all he wants to say is in his eyes. _I love you. I'm proud of you. Be safe. Be happy_.

And Sam has already started screaming before Dean lets go.

**15\. Live Through This**

Missy is long gone, swept ahead of him, and Dean thinks that this incredibly stupid thing he did just shot right to the top of the List Of Incredibly Stupid Things He Did Even Though He Knew They Were Incredibly Stupid. _Fuckin' idjit_ is what Bobby would say, and he doesn't even want to know what Sam's reaction will be. Because he knows from his brother's expression as he let go of whatever the hell he was clinging onto that he was righteously pissed: it was patented Sam bitchface.

_I'm drowning…_

He remembers reading somewhere that drowning victims are always found with their faces frozen in a look of absolute terror, but truth is he's always thought drowning might be a pretty peaceful way to die – better than being eaten, turned, or sacrificed in some demonic blood ritual. He thinks maybe it's that you just breathe in the water, and it's like taking a long refreshing drink that you don't wake up from. So there are a few moments as he's tossed about in the water when he thinks about opening his mouth and letting the water in _but-I-don't-want-to_.

He's barely above the surface, gulping in air, trying to hold his breath when he gets sucked under, having to fight the urge to inhale when he's submerged, his body sending out screaming red alerts to _breathe now, fucker_ , as the carbon dioxide levels in his blood skyrocket to such high levels he just can't hold on any longer, primal reflexes taking over even as his mind is screaming out the opposite, _don't breathe, don't breathe!_

As water floods Dean's nose and mouth he coughs and sputters it out, his face exploding in pain as the first few drops flow in deeper, and he snorts out slime and snot, desperately trying to clear his airways. He can feel his throat constricting, attempting to block the flow of water to his lungs, blocking off what little oxygen is getting through as it does so, the spasms slowly killing him even as they attempt to protect him. His chest feels as if it's caught in a vise, and the squeezing must surely be crushing his sternum, ribs and spine to powder.

And then suddenly it doesn't hurt any more and he's floating, flying, and it's beautiful, blissful, calm.

He's always thought drowning might be a pretty peaceful way to die.

And suddenly it is.

Sam is stock-still on the river bank, on all fours, one hand reaching out over the water, and Hudak thinks ludicrously, _what the fuck is he doing the cat pose for?_ as she races towards him. His face is set in stone-shock and he's staring downriver.

"Did you see them?" she says, sharply. "Sam, did you see them? Where did they go?"

He doesn't react and she grabs his shoulder and shakes him hard.

"Sam, snap out of it! Where's he gone? Did you see him?"

Sam looks up at her slowly, lethargically, and his lips move but nothing comes out. She gets right down in his face, hollers, is fairly sure he gets a faceful of spray for his troubles. "Words, Sam! _Use your words!_ "

And he starts shaking his head violently, _no_ , and looking downriver again, and Huddak knows, _knows_ , and thinks to herself _no fucking way_ , not when we've come this far.

She turns as Bobby comes up behind them, shouts, "He went in the river. Come on…"

Bobby grabs Sam by the upper arm, hauls him to his feet. "Come on, kid, time to get your brother!"

He drags Sam along in his wake as Hudak sprints ahead of them along the riverbank, desperately playing her flashlight out over over the moonlit water.

She's well ahead of them, splashing though the shallows, eyes darting this way and that, searching, trying not to think about the odds, about time passing, about the precious minutes ticking by. She glances at her wristwatch: twenty minutes since she raced out in hot pursuit of Sam, maybe five minutes since she found him, how many minutes does that make since Dean was carried away? _Too many_ …

She wades in thigh-deep, hands out wide at her side so as not to lose her balance, as the fast-moving water clutches at her, dares her to go in further, ice-cold foam fingers beckoning, playing up and down her legs, turning her numb from the knees down. She briefly debates whether to clamber up on the bank to skirt an upcoming mound of debris or pick her way around it, opts to pick, sees the ghost-white reflection of his face half submerged in the water, body caught up in the driftwood and splayed out like a child's rag doll, wafting in the current.

" _Fuck!_ Sam! He's here!"

She screams it so loud she thinks she might have popped a nodule out on her vocal cords, as she wedges her flashlight in the branches, grabs the limp body under the arms and pulls it back towards her, raising Dean's face up out of the water. His head lolls on her shoulder, his features slack, vacant, mouth hanging half open. He's dead weight, and she hangs on as tightly as she can even as the water reaches out, clasps him, tugs at him aggressively, doesn't want to give up its prize. She places shaking fingers at his neck, can't feel anything, doesn't know if it's because her fingers are so cold or because there's nothing there.

Her teeth are chattering and she knows her hands, now wrapped around him, fingers tightly laced, are losing all feeling, losing their grip on him. She risks unclenching them, fists a huge handful of his shirt, flails around in back of herself, feels cold metal in her pocket. _Praise the fucking Lord_. She reaches back around in front of herself, snaps the cuffs on her left wrist and then her right, trapping him in her bear hug. "You aren't picking the lock this time, you arrogant little sonofabitch," she breathes in his ear.

 _Where the fuck are Sam and Bobby?_ She screams their names long and loud, thinks she damn well better have a Stevie Nicks croak crossed with a Demi Moore husk after this, or she's knocking skulls.

The water is crashing around them and Hudak knows it's likely drowning out her cries, so she starts inching her way around the pile of vegetation, knows they're both done for if she loses her step. And suddenly strong hands are there, grabbing hold of her collar, reaching under her arms, gripping her tight and raising her and her flotsam out onto the mud and gravel, her flat on her back and Dean prone on top of her.

"C-c-c-cuffs," she manages to bite out, and Sam sees the shining metal, raises Dean's left arm and eases it down inside her looped arms, maneuvers the rest of his brother out, giving up any effort at being gentle and hauling him down towards her feet when Dean gets stuck halfway, and she thinks, _what's a sore shoulder compared to death by drowning?_

She pushes herself up, exhausted, is aware of Sam resting two fingers on his brother's neck, leaning down over him to listen for breath sounds. She glances at Bobby, whose face is stricken, defeated, broken, desolate, so many words that describe the end of his life as he knows it. She curls in on herself against the cold, teeth clattering violently, as Sam tilts his brother's head back, goes through the drill of checking for obstructions, rips the shirt open, popping buttons in all directions, laces his fingers over Dean's chest, starts to pump.

He spares a glance at Hudak, hollers, "Rescue breaths, when I stop pumping."

She nods, scrambles forward, bends over and waits for Sam to pause, then pinches Dean's nose, covers his lips with hers for two sharp puffs.

And so it goes, and it's totally silent except for the water and Sam's grunts of effort, one, two, three, four… _thirty, now_ , and Hudak thinks abstractedly, _Christ, I get to kiss the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life and he's fucking dead at the time_. One, two, three, four… _thirty, now_ , on and on and on and _on_ , until Bobby speaks quietly.

"Stop."

_Thirty, now, come on… fuck, come on…_

"Sam."

Bobby's tone is gentle, steeped in sorrow, and his hand comes in to rest on Sam's clasped ones.

"Stop now, Sam. No more."

Hudak looks up at Bobby, and sees that there are tears streaking his face, that he suddenly seems worn out and old in a way he never has up to now. And then she looks down at Dean Winchester's still, pale features and thinks that he looks at peace, thinks how wrong that picture is, thinks how unfair it is, thinks that peaceful is never a word she would have associated with him even in the short time she knew him. She thinks about floundering around, gasping and cussing in Kelly Lake with Riley, thinks about skipping to school, thinks about her brother getting in his car and pulling off the driveway, honking the horn and how she just turned and went back inside, thinking how if she'd known she would never see him again she would have stayed on the driveway until his car was a speck in the distance. Hell, she wouldn't have let him out of the house. _So many what-ifs_.

Bobby slowly lifts Sam's hands, fingers still laced, away from his brother's chest, pulls him back onto his butt, Sam shellshocked, face blank, eyes empty.

And Hudak raises her arms up high over her head, fists clenched in a ball and brings them crashing down so hard she hears the crack of ribs with the impact. "You don't get to do this, you bastard!" she yells. "Not again! Not on my fucking watch!"

Dean's eyes fly open, his head and shoulders jump reflexively off the ground, and water spills up out of his mouth. Bobby reacts right away, rolls him onto his side as he splutters out dirty, bloody fluid and gasps in great heaving, whimpering breaths, shaking uncontrollably.

And then Sam is all over his brother, pulling him up into his arms, whispering sweet nothings, rocking him from side to side, his face buried in Dean's shoulder, Dean's head pulled protectively into his as he coughs deep, wet, heavy coughs and wheezes air in between each bark, Sam rubbing circles on his back.

"Jesus… Jesus," says Bobby, dazed for a minute, gathering his self-control. "We need to get him inside," he says then, and he sounds calm now but Hudak can hear the underlying panic in his voice. He crawls closer to Sam, puts his arms around both Winchesters.

"We got him back, Sam. We got him back, boy," he says over and over for a few minutes, as if he needs to hear it said out loud himself. And he looks at Hudak, his heart in his eyes. "Thank you. Thank you."

Dean is shifting about now, making quiet sounds of distress, and he suddenly tenses and starts muttering his brother's name over and over. It's like someone jabbed Sam with a cattle prod, he looks up sharply. "Warm… we need to get him warm."

He gathers his brother up in his arms again, Bobby supporting him as he rises, Hudak thinking Dean looks like an overgrown kid cradled like that, weakly clutching at his brother's arm before his hand drops away to flop at his side.

Bobby leans down, hauls her up onto her feet, and she holds out her hands. "I somehow know you can pick this lock in less than five seconds," she says.

And he does, and Hudak walks beside Sam and his brother, remembers the months of endless searching for Riley, and thinks that this time she made a difference.

He's clean, at least – well, up to a point, Bobby thinks, as he kneels down beside Dean on the floor, pulling away the sopping, newly blood-soaked bandage from his shoulder. The bullet wound is an angry red from Bobby's earlier ministrations and he mutters an oath as he wonders how dirty the river water might be, if they've brought Dean back just to lose him to the bacteria that must even now be eagerly colonizing the torn flesh. All it takes is one dead fucking sheep upstream, he thinks, as he smears antibiotic ointment on the wound and applies a fresh dressing, one moose pausing to take a dump halfway across, one hiker taking a piss off the riverbank.

Dean isn't conscious but he's unsettled, shifting round nervously, uncomfortably, delirious muttering increasing in volume as Sam leaves his place by his side to poke through the dresser in search of clean underclothes for his brother. He pulls at the unyielding, warped wood so he can see better, makes an incoherent, frustrated sound and then yanks the uncooperative drawer out of its housing entirely, tipping the contents all over the floor.

Bobby eases down the pants and stops as Sam ranges up beside him.

It's the first time they've seen the leg.

Bobby thinks of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, about survivors showing off perfect semicircle teeth marks on arms, legs, surfboards, and how he's always mused about the fact that they're almost aesthetically pleasing, neat and symmetrical.

Dean's leg isn't like those bites. Dean's leg is more like the pictures they invariably show of victims, savaged, gripped and violently shaken, tossed about, toyed with. Looking at the pitted and raised gouges, weeping pinkish fluid and pus in some areas, the purplish splotches of bruising that still remain, and the angry puckering that shows all too clearly how the Benders stopped the boy from bleeding out, Bobby can almost feel the horror and the pain, hear the crescendo of snarling, the cries for help. Bobby knows a pitbull's bite force is two thousand pounds per square inch and that their jaws scissor from side to side as they grind down…

"It looks burnt…"

Hudak's voice is dry and cracked.

"They cauterized it," Bobby says shortly. He finishes easing the soaking wet pants down Dean's legs, moves past her to pick the medkit up off the dresser again, thinks why the fuck didn't they check the leg earlier, thinks about how much it must have been hurting the boy while they were focusing all their attention on the shoulder.

"It looks infected…" Hudak says softly, as Sam starts maneuvering his brother into a pair of clean shorts plucked from the pile of clothes he tipped on the floor.

"It is."

Bobby watches Sam carefully walk the shorts up his brother's legs, gathering the fabric and lifting it well clear of the bites, and the reality of seeing the kid laid out there in his birthday suit has his mind cutting to something they'd forgotten, or maybe didn't really want to confront. He doesn't quite know how to voice what he's thinking, inclines his head towards Hudak and tries anyway, speaking in a low whisper. "We need to check for signs. You know. Signs of… _assault_."

The look she gives him tells him that very thought has crossed her mind too. "There'd be bruising. Cuts maybe…" she says, shrugging helplessly.

Bobby grimaces. "Not now. We need to get him warmed up… and not with Sam here."

He moves to help Sam hoist Dean up onto the bed, brusquely orders him to strip and get in with his brother, who's now shaking violently with chills, while he tends to the leg and tapes gauze over the worst areas. Sam doesn't argue, leaves his wet sneakers and jeans in a pile and clambers in around Dean, pulling him up onto his bare chest while Bobby piles on blankets before motioning Hudak outside into the hallway.

"This a fuck-up of outstanding proportions," he says, as sincerely as he has said anything in the last week. "I reckon we're looking at a raging infection in the next day or so, maybe pneumonia from the river water he's swallowed…" He pauses. "Jesus, he was already knocking on heaven's door before this happened. How much worse can this get? We need antibiotics, proper strapping for his chest, his ribs must be even more busted up now—"

"I can get the antibiotics," Hudak cuts in. "Swenson – the doctor – there should be some in his office. But how am I going to get into town? It's five already and this isn't something I can do in broad daylight. If we need them asap, I need to get there faster than walking or hitching…"

Bobby thinks for a minute. "There must be a vehicle I can hotwire somewhere on this property."

Something is sticking in Sam and he can't work out what it is until he eases his brother up slightly and sees the notches of Dean's vertebrae protruding all the way down his back, past the black shadow of the boot-shaped bruise. He can feel each individual rib under his probing fingers, and when his hand ranges lower he can feel his brother's hipbones jutting out. _Half-starved. Jesus_.

He shifts so he's more comfortable, holds Dean as tightly as he feels is safe, feeling his brother's body wracked by chills, freezing cold. He can feel himself start to hyperventilate as he wonders how long Dean was under, at the thought he's going to wake up _not-Dean_ in some way, either because his brain has withered and died from oxygen deprivation, or because Sam was mistaken and Dean didn't recognize him at all. He can feel his panic build as he thinks that maybe he imagined it… but his brother had said his name, hadn't he, when he came round? Called for him like he always has done when he's hurt or sick, when he needs him.

Dean shifts restlessly, mumbles something that sounds like _no-no-please-no_.

And Sam knows he's helplessly out of his depth this time. He's held his brother while he pukes, nursed him through flu, food poisoning and fugly venom, stitched him up, splinted him, even helped tie his wrists and ankles to the bed-frame in whatever sleazy motel room they were staying in on one occasion, so his dad could dig out a bullet that got there because John mistook Dean's shadow for something way worse on a werewolf hunt in Nebraska. But this… this is something Sam has no frame of reference for, this is a hurt of the mind, the psyche, the self-esteem, if what they suspect may have happened has happened.

Control, Dean likes control, and Sam knows that particular kind of violence is about destroying control. He hears a sound, glances down at his brother, thinks he's coming round, and realizes it's him, making small, muffled noises of sadness, grief, horror. But oh God, he has his brother back, is holding him here in his arms, will never let him go if he can help it, _if I have to fucking lojack you_ , he murmurs in Dean's ear, through his tears.

"Hold the flashlight up a bit more."

"That okay?"

"No, more to the right. That's it. There, point it there."

"You'll have to show me how to do that. I always wanted to know."

"I'm not doing this, Kathleen. And you're not seeing it. That clear?"

"Picking a lock too. I'd really like to know how to pick a lock…"

"That's enough— _whoah!_ There you go."

The engine roars to life, backfiring viciously, and Bobby emerges from under the dash. "All set. Gas tank's half full, should get you there…"

"Um. How do I turn it off when I get there?"

"It's a stick shift. Just stall it. You'll be using your own car to get back, yes?"

"I don't know how to drive a stick shift."

"Jesus wept."

Sam must have dozed off, because his brother's twitching and moaning jolts him back to consciousness. It's comfortingly warm with Dean's bare back up against his chest, and it occurs to Sam that he hasn't had this much skin pressed up against him since Jessica. He savors it for a long moment, thinks how completely perfect skin-to-skin contact is, how skin was made to be pressed up against the skin of another person. Even if it is his brother's skin, and Dean's body is all hard angles and sharp points compared to Jessica's softness and curves. Sam can't help smirking as he ponders just how to tell his brother how much he loves this closeness, a closeness they never seem to share unless Dean is hurt, and he can almost hear Dean's growled response, _personal space, dude!_

"Sshhhhh…" he breathes, soothing, comforting, as his brother grows more restless, and he tightens his grip.

And abruptly, Dean explodes in Sam's arms, a fury of motion, yelling, hitting out, struggling frantically, fighting with a strength Sam can't believe he still possesses.

Bobby appears in the doorway, a _what-the-fuck?_ expression on his face, takes in the sight, races over and tries to restrain Dean as he hollers and writhes, not seeing, not hearing Sam's attempts to talk him down, calm him down, and now his back is arching and he's kicking out, fighting with all he has for them to let go, stop holding him down, crying out, barely coherent.

"No-lemme-go-no-no-Lee-don't…"

And it hits Sam then, straight between the eyes: a wave of realization, of horror, of compassion, and the air is buffeted by the beating wings of birds coming home to roost.

"Let him go!" he shouts at Bobby, who's still trying to get a grip on Dean's legs. "We have to let him go! He's flashing back! He thinks it's Bender!"

He doesn't have to say it twice; Bobby leaps back like a scalded cat, appalled, as Sam simultaneously releases his grip around his brother's torso. Dean flies out of the bed and crabs his way to the smallest, darkest spot in the room, cramming himself into a three-foot wide gap between the dresser and the wall.

Sam and Bobby sit for a minute, staring at each other, aghast, speechless.

"Sam…?"

It's faint, uncertain.

Sam's eyes widen and he moves cautiously off the bed, edges closer to Dean's safe place, sits down just nearby and waits. After a moment, Dean's hand slides out across the floor towards Sam's, inch by inch, and Sam mirrors the action, not looking at Dean, still staring directly at Bobby, and the old man's eyes are brimming now.

Sam places his big hand over Dean's smaller one, pats it gently, lifts it up towards him.

And Bobby gets up and backs silently out of the room as Sam draws his brother out into his arms and Dean falls apart spectacularly in his embrace.

**16\. One Step Beyond**

_The clutch and brake should work in harmony my ass_ , Hudak thinks as she grinds towards Hibbing, almost mowing down a raccoon taking an early morning stroll in her determination not to stall the truck, no, tank, no strike that, fucking prototype horseless carriage from the year dot that Bobby set her up with. The old man explained the whole clutch-brake deal with as much patience as he could muster, desperate as he was to get back to Dean, and she thanks God he also spent five minutes giving her the Cliffs Notes version of hotwiring an automobile because she jounces to a halt several times on the way into town and spends long moments teasing the engine back to life, wondering how she could have reached thirty- _cough_ without learning the finer things in a life of crime.

She stalls the beast for the last time on her driveway, makes a quick supply run for fresh clothes and, sweet Jesus, _coffee_ , grabbing the machine and a vacuum pack of Colombian and dumping them on the back seat of the Jeep. She races back inside to take a leak and a thirty-second shower, phones to let Matty know she thinks she's found some Bender tracks and is heading back out to search some more, please hang onto the dog for a few more days, and grabs a pack of Oreos.

As far as breaking and entering Swenson's office is concerned, it's the old-fashioned way – through the yard and a sharp tap with the butt of her revolver to the glass in his back door, and she thinks there's no way in hell she's letting Bobby Singer and the Winchesters leave town without showing her how to pick a lock.

The office shows no signs of Sam's rampage all those weeks ago; it's in perfect shipshape order, books and papers packed away, a new chair. Hudak starts opening cabinets, pulling drawers, rifling through boxes, finds nothing but ibuprofen and a few bottles of antiseptic, curses and packs them anyway because fever meds and a river of antiseptic will be some use even if they aren't the antibiotics Bobby is hoping for.

She's absorbed in what she's doing but not so absorbed that she doesn't hear the creak behind her. She whirls around, dropping the pack and reaching to her holster for her gun, stops, gapes.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Bobby can't sit still, paces up and down the kitchen, stands in the doorway, listens, paces up and down the hall, and finally can't stand the suspense.

He pushes the half-open door, peers around it into the bedroom, sees Sam's long legs and huge feet splayed out, his brother curled up between them in a fetal position, face buried in Sam's chest, Sam holding him upright. _Asleep_ , he mouths at Bobby, and he nods over towards the bed.

Dean stirs as Bobby lifts him back off Sam, struggles feebly, offers a ghost of a smile when he sees who it is. His face is white, his cheeks two hectic splotches of pink, and his eyes are fever-bright.

"We got you, boy," Bobby breathes, and he holds Dean close for a minute, wiping sweat-spiked hair away from his forehead. He frowns at the heat emanating from Dean's skin as Sam groans, stretches cramped muscles and then moves in to lift his brother back up on the bed.

"C'n walk…" Dean mumbles, trying to shake off his brother's arm, but Sam ignores his efforts, swings him up as his brother bites back a cry, and lays him down.

"He's running a fever," Sam mutters.

It's no surprise: it was inevitable really. Bobby is already rooting out a thermometer, inserting it briefly in Dean's ear until it beeps. He clicks his tongue. "So-so… 101.5 degreees." He glances up at Sam. "The only way is up," he says grimly. "Jeez, where is that pay-by-the hour motel with the ice machine when you most need it…"

He parks the thermometer on the nightstand. "Okey dokey. Time to see if that bag of Bender's has anything that might help instead of hinder," he says. "I'll be back." He pauses at the door, turns around to look back at them. "Sam… why don't you spend some time talking to your brother now he's awake," he says, and although the words are innocuous enough Sam knows they're loaded with things unsaid, a subtext that's quite clearly telling him to talk to his brother while he still has the chance.

Dean twitches nervously as Sam pulls up the sheet and blankets, tries to push them away. "S' hot…" he mumbles. "Too hot…"

"You're running a fever Dean. It'll be chills in a few minutes."

"Hrts…"

Sam pulls a chair up close to the bed, grasps Dean's hand, tries to calm the tremors. "Where does it hurt, Dean?" he asks and he knows what the answer will be.

"E'vrwhere…"

Bobby comes back in, carrying a bottle of pills and a glass of water. "Vicodin. Should help with the pain and the fever," he says, shaking out one of the pills onto Sam's palm.

Sam stares at it doubtfully. "Think it's okay for him to have this on top of everything else he might have been taking?"

"No," says Bobby, blunt as always. "But he's only flaked out like that because he's too worn down to cry out, kid. At this point if there's anything we can give him for some relief we should give it to him."

Sam gazes at the pill for a minute, thinks numbly that Bobby's words reek of palliative care for the terminally ill. Dean's eyes spin crazily in their sockets as Sam lifts up his head, and he half expects to see a couple of jackpot signs. "Dean… open up kiddo. This'll help with the pain." His brother accepts the pill, choking a little on the cool water before gulping it greedily.

"Not too much, Dean… you'll be sick," Sam cautions, and lowers him back down, smiling at the frown of irritation his brother's features form.

"Fucktard," Dean slurs. "Fuckin' _fucktard_ , Lee… no. _No_." He hits out, almost knocks the glass from Sam's hand, opens his eyes wide and stares right into Sam's face. "Fucker," he mutters, a note of spite underlying the weakness. "S' red pills. Pink too. Missy… says so… _now_."

Bobby's eyes widen. "Well, that's something to go on." He leaves the room, returning a couple of minutes later with the black bag. He sits on the bed, empties the bottles out on the blanket and they rummage through whites, blues, yellows, two-color combos, until Sam pounces on one: a bottle containing two red pills, holds it up.

"Secobarbital… I don't know what that is. Bobby, do you know what that is?" He hands the bottle to the older man, pokes through the rest of the meds, looking for any that are pink, snatches them up. "Fluoxetine… that's familiar…" He thinks hard, wishes to fuck he had his laptop and a handy wireless connection to piggyback, plucks the answer from a dusty filing cabinet in an empty office somewhere in the basement of his brain. "Prozac. That's Prozac, Jess had some." He looks up at Bobby. "Any ideas on the red ones?"

Bobby is staring at the two remaining reddish pills, the kind of look that tells Sam that yes, he damn well does know what they are. "You know something," he prompts, glancing swiftly back at his dazed brother when he hears a faint moan. "What are they? Bobby?"

Bobby sighs. "Bad news, kid. Bad news is what they are." He rubs his chin hard. "Red devils. A real mean drug to get hooked on… barbiturate, real addictive." He eyes Sam for a minute. "I knew a guy, took it years ago," he continues, almost carefully. "Bad fuckin' medicine… He'd get up out of bed, make phone calls, get in his car to go for a drive, cook meals, all in this… this _sleep-wake_ state. Never had a clue when he came round."

Sam can see there's more, something Bobby isn't saying, can see it in his eyes. He's dead calm when he asks the next question. "Was that my dad, Bobby? That man, was it my dad?"

Bobby makes this snorting, chuffing noise out through his nose, scratches his head. "No, kid," he says wearily. "It was me."

Sam doesn't know if he feels relief that it wasn't his dad or sadness that it was Bobby, jumps automatically ahead so he doesn't have to dwell on it. "Bobby, getting off this drug… What's that like?"

The old man gets up, walks a few paces away, doesn't look at Sam. "It's a fuckin' nightmare, boy." He turns then. "Did you see them give him these, give him anything?"

"Christ, Bobby, he was so high he was orbiting the moon," Sam says, feeling the tremors in his brother's hand grow fractionally worse. "Bender said he'd been chewing peyote, but they didn't give him anything else that I could see… if he took those, he did it while I was unconscious or asleep."

Bobby's shaking his head. "No wonder the kid was so out of it. Christ… bang on the head and this shit on top of it… they could have told him day was night and he'd have believed them."

Sam can see Bobby is doing mental calculations, and sure enough, "We should have been keeping better track of time," the old man mutters. "Stupid, _stupid_. It must be more than twenty-four hours since he's had any. That means the shit's gonna start hitting the fan any time now." He motions to the pile of bottles. "See if there's any more," he says. "He's gonna need 'em."

"More?" Sam says, perplexed. "Shouldn't we be weaning him _off_ them?"

"This isn't something we can hurry, boy," Bobby says, his tone grim. "Has to be done gradual. Cold turkey is just not an option with him like this."

Sam sorts through the drugs, looks up, his voice hollow. "There's no more of them, Bobby."

Bobby is frantically searching through kitchen cabinets when Hudak gets back, and he doesn't look at her as she walks in.

"Everything okay?" she ventures, as he sweeps bottles and jars aside.

"No it is not," he barks, but he still doesn't turn around. "They've been giving the kid barbs, fuckin' red devils. This is… _Jesus_. We're at Def-Con One right now, Kathleen, so please tell me you have the meds we need or so help me I will start throwing punches."

He whirls around finally stops dead.

"I went one better," Hudak says. "Meet the famous Doc Swenson."

Bobby strides across the room, smiles, holds out his hand, feints and lets swing a right hook that sends Swenson careening back onto the floor.

"Well, I don't blame you," Hudak says, stepping quickly in front of the prone man before Bobby can recover enough to haul him up and sink another. "But he's here to help. And it sounds like we need it."

Bobby rubs his knuckles. "This is partly his fuckin' fault, Kathleen," he snaps. "Dean is strung out on drugs he supplied."

"Not barbiturates," the man bleats from the floor. "I didn't prescribe those. I've only ever prescribed lithium for Lee and Prozac for the old man's insomnia. I swear to God."

Hudak doesn't know why, but she believes him. "Bobby we need all the help we can get," she repeats. "He says he wants to help. He can check the wound, the leg… reset the arm. He's brought supplies, antibiotics, fluids. We can't be choosy, not now."

Swenson clambers to his feet, rubs his bloody nose. "I didn't want any of this," he says. "I tried to get them to leave your boy behind, but the girl wouldn't do it. She had a gun. So I did what I could for him, gave them some antibiotics."

Bobby stares him down and Hudak thinks that if she had a knife handy she could slice the tension in the air into chunks and serve it up for dinner.

Swenson tries again. "Look, for what it's worth, I'm so—"

"Save it," Bobby says curtly. "He's through here."

Hudak can hear the coughing as they leave the kitchen, deep, hacking, phlegm-rasping coughs that are painful to listen to. And she stops just inside the doorway to the bedroom, because the decline has been so rapid she's appalled.

Sam is sitting on the bed up close beside his brother, his knees bent. He's supporting Dean in a semi-upright position, his torso slumped forward and resting on Sam's thighs, his head limp on Sam's knees and his arms trailing down. Sam taps and rubs his brother's back between his shoulder blades as Dean chokes and splutters out red-tinged slime, and uses a towel to gently, patiently, wipe Dean's lips. In between coughs, Dean's breath is a dry, Vader wheeze. He's soaked with sweat, shivering, even looks smaller.

"What are you doing here?" Sam says when he sees who is standing beside Hudak, and his voice is tired, hopeless, not angry or even surprised.

Swenson lifts up his bag. "I'm here to help. If you'll let me."

Sam's lack of reaction seems like a good sign and Hudak ushers the man forward. He sets his bag down on the bed, starts rifling through it. "Have you checked his temperature?" he says, businesslike, as he tugs out a stethoscope.

Swenson picks up the thermometer from the nightstand, takes a reading, raises an eyebrow. "And the Deputy says he drowned and you brought him back?"

"Yeah," Bobby confirms. "Yeah… he drowned… took maybe three, four minutes of CPR to get him back."

"Did he vomit up water when he came round?"

"Yep."

Swenson sits on the bed next to Dean, sucks in a breath when he sees the size twelve bruise on his back, breathes on the stethoscope to warm it, slides it in above Sam's knees and under the gauze dressing, onto Dean's chest, scowls. "That's not good…"

He glances at Hudak, then to Sam, tentatively offers Sam the earpiece. After a moment's hesitation Sam takes it, listens.

"You hear that crackling noise?" Swenson says.

"Like interference on the radio," Sam murmurs.

"And there's a rumbling sound as he breathes out," Swenson picks up. "It's called rails, it indicates liquid in his lungs. I can't give you a definite diagnosis without a chest x-ray but since he's been in the river it's highly likely this is pneumonia." He looks around at Hudak again. "Deputy, this man should be in a hospital on oxygen." He lifts Dean's hand. "Look at his fingertips… blue. And his lips. Cyanosis. He doesn't have enough oxygen in his blood."

Hudak shrugs ruefully. "Don't look at me. If I had my way, he'd have been there yesterday."

Bobby, standing beside her, shifts from foot to foot. "That's not an option right now," he says uncomfortably, but he doesn't apportion blame.

Swenson considers them for a minute, nods. "Right. Well. I'll do what I can for him. But you need to understand it's my medical opinion that he needs hospital care."

Bobby nods. "I hear you loud and clear."

"Okay…" Swenson gets up, takes off his sweater, rolls up his sleeves. "I'll need to set up a drip for the antibiotics and fluids… he'll be dehydrated from the sweating."

"Do you need me to lay him down?" Sam says quietly, keeping up his rubbing and tapping as his brother wheezes.

"No, upright is good, help him bring up some of the mucus. Has he vomited?"

"No… I don't know when he last ate. But he's dropped at least twenty pounds."

"And the Deputy says Lee was giving him drugs?"

"Not Lee," Sam says. "The girl, I think. But Lee said he'd started taking them himself." He pauses for a minute. "The drugs he was taking… secobarbital, Prozac too, I think. Those are pretty addictive, right?"

Swenson is uncapping a bottle of antiseptic, pulling out cotton wool pads. "The barbiturate is, yes. Do you know when he last had any?"

"Not in the last twenty-four hours," Bobby chips in. "He's been twitchy, aggressive. We've got a couple of pills left, we were gonna give him a half-dose."

"Well, ordinarily I'd agree with you but it's not a good idea in his condition," Swenson says, producing a saline drip pack from his bag. "It could depress his respiratory system even more… in fact the barbs might be one of the reasons this is so bad."

"It's bad then…?" Sam asks softly.

"You can lay him down now, I need to get to his arm to set this up," Swenson says. "And yes, it is bad."

He blanches at the patchwork of cuts, bruises and scars, recovers himself and gently palpates Dean's torso. "Three cracked, one broken as far as I can tell. Christ. That's going to be a problem with the coughing… we can't strap him if his breathing's depressed." He breaks out a sterile needle, starts tapping for a vein, finds it with some difficulty, squinting at the bruise he can see in the crook of Dean's arm. "Is he a user?"

"No," Bobby snaps roughly. "Blood transfusion."

Swenson doesn't look up, concentrates on sliding in the needle, tapes it in place. "No offense meant. It could complicate matters even more if he is, that's all." He pegs the saline pack up on the same lampstand Bobby used. "Transfusing was a tad risky without using anticoagulants."

"There was warfarin mixed in with the meds," Hudak says. "He bled a lot after I winged him. We assumed he'd taken it."

Swenson smiles wryly. "Well he was lucky. The drugs probably met each other in the middle. If there was any residual warfarin it probably aided the transfusion. And barbiturates have a coagulant effect, so they probably balanced the effect of the warfarin enough to make a difference with the bleeding. Okay… anyone wearing a belt?"

They all stare at him, uncomprehending, the noise of Dean's teeth chattering a steady percussion in the sudden silence.

"We need to immobilize this arm, strap it down," Swenson elaborates. "He's weak but he could get violent coming down from the drugs and rip out the drip, damage the shoulder further."

Hudak reaches behind her, retrieves her cuffs, glances over in silent apology at Sam as she tugs up the bedclothes and secures Dean's wrist to the bed-frame.

Dean stares up at her with open-grave eyes, pulls at the cuff. "Dn't do that… Lee… _bitch_. Sam?"

Sam leans over him, whispers soothing words in his ear as Swenson shoots a syringe of clear liquid into the IV. Bobby immerses a cloth in a bowl of water on the dresser, wrings it out, sits on the bed and gently wipes Dean's face and neck, as Dean tries to escape the cool sensation, twisting his head away.

"He needs oxygen," Swenson says. "I can get it at the hospital. I'll check the shoulder and the leg first – the antibiotics will help with those – and I'll have to re-break the arm and cast it. We need the other bag from the car, it has a mallet in it."

The cuffs clank against metal again as Dean heaves on them. "Lemme go… Sam… _Dad_? Don't do that, Lee… y' m' brother… _no_ …"

Hudak sees Sam's shoulders go taut at the reminder of what might have happened. "Bender," he says, loud and clear, his voice thick with a menace Hudak hasn't heard since their last encounter with the doctor. Almost subconsciously, she moves in closer, ready to deflect if necessary. She can tell Swenson is aware of Sam's heightened tension, he licks his lips, swallows a couple of times.

"What about him?"

"Was he clean?"

Swenson seems genuinely puzzled. "Clean? I don't know what you mean…" And then he gets it, sits down heavily. "Jesus. Jesus, Lee." He holds his head in his hands. "Yes, he was clean."

Hudak interjects. "Could you tell by looking? If Lee… hurt him?"

Swenson pales, stares up at her. "Uh… well, yes, probably. But – there's no way… the circumstances, I just… _no_." He glances uneasily towards Sam. "No. It wouldn't be right for me to check. Christ, I don't even do prostate exams because of this. No. I can tell you what to look for, but I'm not doing it. It's not right."

Hudak curses inwardly, thinks how fucking ironic it is that Swenson has rediscovered his integrity when they least need it. She looks over to Sam and he nods, just barely.

"Okay, Doc," she says. "You can tell me what to look for while we get the other bag."

Swenson gets up, follows her, reaches out and stops her in the hallway. "Lee… look, he wasn't ever rough, but without the meds…"

She nods. "Aggressive. I remember you saying so the day you let the sonofabitch abduct that kid. Just like I remember you saying he didn't swing that way."

The man doesn't attempt to defend himself again. "This kind of thing… if it happens to men… there's a tendency for it to be more violent."

Hudak sighs. "Yes, I've heard that. But he hasn't been bleeding, not as far as I could see." And she suddenly thinks that they didn't really check, and Dean has been in the river so any signs would be gone. And that all she really wants to do is lean up against the wall and slide down it and never get up.

"Sammy…"

Dean's voice is husky in between coughing spasms, and Sam heaves him higher up onto the pillows sits back down in his chair, and wipes his brother's face with the washcloth. "We need to try to get some food into him, Bobby. Think there's some soup or something?"

Bobby gets up, stretches. "I'll check. Kathleen brought coffee, I'll get a brew going. Looks like we're in for a long night."

Dean is smiling drowsily, and Sam draws circles on the back of his brother's hand with his thumb. "Jesus, Dean. I don't know what I'd have done," he says, wipes his eyes on his sleeve. "I thought it was over. Thought you were gone… again."

"Baaaad habit," his brother drawls.

"You dying? It sure as hell is."

"Noooo… you leaving," Dean says. "Always leaving." And suddenly Dean isn't smiling any more, isn't docile. He's agitated, shifting about in the bed and tugging restlessly at the cuffs. "You left me there… left me. _Bitch_ …"

"Jerk…" Sam says, because he's at a loss, can't think of anything else to say, hopes against hope his brother will give him that tired smile again, say bitch like he means it – not like he _means_ it.

Dean pulls his hand away, clutches his chest, coughs, breathless, his face creasing in pain. "No. Fuck you… left me. _Bastard_. Left me with… fuckin' _animal_ …"

Sam leans in, tries to reassure him. "Dean, calm down, please calm down… stop or you're gonna hurt yourself even more…" He grabs his brother's hand again, only for Dean to take a wild swing at him, his forearm crashing down on the nightstand with a sickening crack. He cries out in pain and his body goes rigid, arms and legs twitching, eyes wide but unseeing, jaw locking, froth bubbling at the corners of his mouth.

Bobby is already there. "Seizure," he cries, sits down, oh so gently restrains Dean while his limbs continue to spasm, until he slumps, limp, unconscious.

"He thinks I left him," Sam says, and he wrings his hands. "It's my fault, Bobby, it's—"

"No it isn't, Sam," Bobby snaps. "Listen and listen good, kid. The detox caused the seizure and I know that from experience." He gets up, stands in front of Sam, grips his face in his hands. "Nothing you did caused this, kid. It's the drugs. And you need to hold that thought, because this is is gonna get worse before it gets better."

Bobby looks over at Swenson as he comes back in carrying a small case, Hudak behind him. "He seized, more than one minute, less than two, eyes open and blank till he passed out. And you won't need to be re-breaking the arm."

Swenson is weary as he drives back towards Hibbing, wonders how and why he even let himself get sucked into this mess, remembers that little matter of responsibility and sighs.

The kid might be in with a chance – _might_. In truth, it's the psychological damage that's going to be the biggest problem, he thinks, and he shudders as he remembers what it was like for him in the marines, and how he knows from bitter experience how violent _that_ often is, and what the long-term effects can be.

The figure is walking along by the side of the road and he knows who it is straightaway.

He honks, pulls up, leans over and opens the passenger door. "What the hell are you doing wandering around out here?" he snaps. "Get in."

**17\. The Perfect Storm**

_I never left there_ , he thinks.

He can hear her puttering about, the clink of the spoon as she stirs whatever glop is the meal of the day, the rustling as she throws twigs on the fire. He shifts feebly but he doesn't have the strength to move, he's been chewed up, spat out, he hurts and his limbs don't work any more. Energy is something that happens to other people. He can't breathe in without feeling his chest creak and tighten, his body feels like a furnace, his head pounds and he holds it rigid because even the tiniest inclination left or right has his brain gyrating crazily around inside his skull.

He's fuckin' starvin'.

 _And he's afraid_.

The fear has a point of reference, something he can focus on. And in focusing on it he knows he should be able to rationalize it, talk himself through it, take careful aim and overcome it, like he has done since his father presented him with his first sawed-off at thirteen.

But this fear can't be rationalized and overcome, because it's fear of the thing that means the most to him in this life and the sense of betrayal has him drowning in bewilderment, sorrow, shame, terror.

He knows how he can escape it.

"Sssshhhhhh… sshhhhhh…"

He can hear a voice rambling, crying out abruptly, muttering, whispering, wonders who it is for a minute.

"Sssshhhhh, Dean…"

And it's him, the voice, spouting crap and nonsense. "Please… please… n-n-n-need to… to st-st-stop _thinking_."

His voice rustles out proper words as dry as dead leaves, so faint and petrified that he doesn't believe it can possibly be him speaking. The effort leaves him breathless, shallow gasps all he can manage, oxygen barely squeezing past a tongue that lies thick and dry in his mouth, even though he wants desperately to suck in precious air, in and in until he's so full he levitates and Lee – _Sam_? – has to tie a rope around his ankle so he doesn't float off into the stratosphere.

"Dean. I'm here. It's okay…"

"Help me… pictures in my head… make 'em go away…"

His voice is broken but inside his head it streams out strong and fluent and he's begging, pleading, screaming, _fuck-Lee-please-it-hurts-so-much-please-make-it-stop-anything-I'll-do-anything_ , and he blinks in confusion as shooting stars career wildly past him and he thinks he might be making the jump into hyperspace or stepping through the Stargate.

"Everything's okay Dean, please believe me. You're gonna be fine."

"Need… I need…"

He feels a hand touch his face, a light touch sliding through the water of tears that leak from his eyes and trail salt over his lips, fingertips gently wiping the trickle of moisture away before it can soak into his hair, tracing gentle circles on his temples and brow. He turns into the hand, tries to focus on the hypnotic sensation, the round and round, the up and down.

"Need what, Dean? What do you need?"

The pain comes in rips and tears, taunts and teases him, reaches in, pokes, twists, slashes, leaps back out of reach, attacks again from a different angle. He gags as his mouth fills up with burning acid, coughs the tiniest, barely manageable cough, and dribbles rancid slime out the side of his mouth, feels the soft sensation of damp cloth wipe the drool away.

"You _know_. Please. Lee… I need it… red ones…"

"Sam. It's Sam, Dean."

"Sam… Sammy…"

He remembers Sam in a slideshow of memories that play out on the fifty-three inch plasma flatscreen he keeps front and center of his mind for that very purpose, _take-your-brother-outside-now-Dean_ the opening credits to images that bombard him, images of him and his brother, the perfect nuclear family, them against the world; images of a father and various other adults who play walk-on parts in their lives but never really break through the he-and-me invisible forcefield they have separating them from _not-them_. He fast-forwards through sleepless nights, spoonfeeding, tantrums, abc and 123, tears wiped away, booboos bandaged, hide-and-seek, the laughter and brightness, the small arms clinging tightly, the fierce desire to protect that innocence and the profound sadness at seeing it worn away. The sullen moods, the hurt feelings, the angry words as his brother became his father before his very eyes, _man-up-Dean… how-can-you-stand-him… stop-being-such-a-fucking-tool… how-can-this-be-enough-for-you… I-have-plans… this-is-what-I-want… you-can't-stop-me…_

And that day when Sam left.

He remembers feeling proud.

He remembers feeling empty.

He remembers feeling lost.

 _You never fuckin' asked me what I wanted. You never fuckin' asked what mattered to me_.

"Sam left," he whispers.

It's quieter in there at last, Bobby thinks, Dean's insensible raving and fretting, and the endless clink as he tugs fitfully at the cuff, easing off. He checks in on them, can see Sam slumped over the bed, his head resting up against his brother's cast, his right hand tangled in Dean's hair and his left loosely cupping the fingertips peeping from the plaster. Bobby pads in, drapes a quilt over Sam, pulls the blanket up higher on Dean to guard against the evening chill.

Dean's breathing is erratic and his eyes are roving under his closed lids, dry, cracked lips moving, almost soundlessly though he can hear the barest whisper.

Bobby leans closer, listens.

"Please-come-get-me-please-come-get-me…"

He has to force back the tears that threaten, thinks how unutterably sad it is that this boy is lying in bed, warm, safe, meds trickling into him, and his entire focus, his _reason_ for the last twenty-two years, is right there next to him, but he's still trapped in his nightmare.

Bobby reaches to the nightstand for a small pot of lipbalm Hudak left there, almost-joking that the lips needed preserving so she could kiss the kid properly when he was better. He dabs it gently on bluish skin, feeling like a fucking idjit, thinking how Dean would roll his eyes and make some snide comment about bleeding hearts, thanking Christ Sam isn't awake to see him although he knows Sam would get it.

The cuff clinks again and Bobby sees that Dean's wrist is rubbed red-raw, a livid crimson bracelet tattooed into his skin. Something else he can fix, make better. He fetches the medkit, unlocks the cuff, carefully cleans and salves the chafed area, covers it with gauze, and bandages it. He lifts the hand back into the cuff, feels the fingers suddenly tighten around his.

Dean is looking right at him, a vaguely mystified look. "Bobby…?"

Bobby smiles, rests his other hand on top of Dean's. "The one and only. How you feeling, son?"

"They got you too?" Dean whispers sadly.

"No, you're out of there now," Bobby soothes. "We got you out. You're safe."

"Safe…?"

Bobby can't fight the tears any more and they splash onto the back of his hand as it rests over Dean's.

"Safe, boy. Bender isn't gonna hurt you no more. No more. It's over."

Dean's expression falls desolate. "They hurt me."

Bobby forces words out over the lump in his throat. "We're gonna make you better, boy. We're gonna make the hurt go away, I promise. And Sam's here, look…"

Dean's eyes flicker over to the shock of dark brown hair on the bed. "Sam left," he breathes out. "Why…?" He shifts, splutters, and his eyes grow huge with pain as his lungs rebel and he coughs.

Bobby pulls Dean up into his arms, lays his boy's head on his shoulder and rubs his back as his body shakes in a paroxysm of wet hacks and chokes he desperately tries to swallow. He knows the damaged ribs must stabbing agony inside the kid, and all the time he struggles, fights against the circle of Bobby's arms, and it breaks the old man's heart.

"Lemme… go… pls… Cn… breathe…"

"Yes you can, boy," says Bobby, tries to rock him calm. "In, out, that's right. In, out."

Dean stops struggling, freezes in Bobby's arms, wound tight with anxiety but listening, trying to breathe along with him. Sam, exhausted, sleeps through the coughing, the wheezing, the spitting, and once the attack finally eases, Bobby gently lowers Dean back down.

"No… stay," Dean whispers, clinging on now and fighting Bobby's attempts to lay him flat. "Dad… don't let me go, dad. Don't go."

"I won't let go, son," Bobby murmurs, and he holds his boy and rocks him to sleep.

Hudak wakes from her doze, rubs her arms briskly against the cold, gets up and throws another log in the furnace. She looks at her wristwatch, frowns. She finds Bobby propping Dean up, the kid fast asleep on his shoulder.

"Hey." She motions him outside and he lowers Dean down as gently as if he were cut glass, follows her.

"I think Swenson should have been back by now and I'm a tad worried that he isn't," she says. "I know he took care of Dean but it's obvious from what was going on here with the Benders that he's a devious sonofabitch. I wouldn't put it past him to call the FBI."

Bobby snorts. "Well, I wouldn't trust him any further than I could throw him, that's a fact." He looks back in at Dean, reaches out and pulls the door over. "We need that oxygen, Kathleen… kid can barely draw breath once he starts coughing. I honestly thought we were gonna lose him this morning."

She considers. "I'm going to drive back into town, see if he's been held up for some reason. If he's raised the alert, I'll do my best to get back here ahead of the authorities… but if the Feds are onto us, there's no way we can move Dean."

Bobb huffs. "We'll drive off that bridge when we get to it."

Hudak is steering her Jeep up onto Swenson's driveway beside his sedan forty-five minutes later. The trunk of his car is open and she glances in as she walks by, sees a couple of oxygen tanks in there, thinks she's misjudged him this time, although he's still a devious sonofabitch.

She knocks at the door, doesn't get a reply, turns the knob and finds it unlocked. She briefly thinks, careless, given his office is well equipped with pricey machinery and a drugs cabinet any number of Hibbing's toxic teens would love to get their cloven hooves into.

When she pushes open his office door and sees him slumped over his desk she thinks, _heck of a time to be catching up_ , says so as well. "Swenson, for crying out loud. We need the fucking oxygen and you're here taking a nap. Jesus."

He doesn't stir. She comes up behind him, tugs at his shoulder and his arm slips off the desk with a depressingly heavy finality. She pulls him up and back and gags, because under his chin Swenson has sprouted a whole new mouth that grins redly at her, and his shirt front is painted in sticky scarlet.

She stumbles back, spins around with her service revolver drawn, fumbles for the phone, stops herself.

She heads back outside, eyes darting in every direction, gun at the ready. It's quiet, quiet enough. She makes her way over to Swenson's car, lifts the oxygen tanks out of the trunk, closes it, stows them in the Jeep.

Then she makes the call.

It's dark and Bobby is pacing up and down outside the Bender place when Hudak pulls up and climbs out.

"Jesus!" he barks. "Ever heard of the phone? We've been packin' up here, fixin to head out once I got another truck started. What the fuck took you so long?"

He sees her face, pale, tense, and he softens his tone. "I'm sorry Kathleen… I'm just worried about the kid, he don't seem to be doing as well as we hoped with the antibiotics, and when you didn't come back I thought…" He peers behind the Jeep up the trail. "Where's Swenson?"

"He won't be coming," she says, opening the tailgate of her Jeep to let her dog out.

The hound is delighted to be loose, delighted to meet Bobby, and it slobbers all over him as he whacks its ribs hard with the flat of his hand. "I always loved a dog you can really slap," he muses. "I keep rottweilers myself, good guard dogs, make enough noise to warn you shit's comin' before it hits the fan. Can't stand those ratty terriers. Not coming back then? Figures."

He reaches beyond her into the Jeep, hauls out one of the tanks.

"He's dead. Swenson. Back at his surgery. His throat was cut. It was pretty messy… I couldn't just walk out of there."

Bobby gapes, puts down the oxygen tank and parks his rear on the car. He eyes the dog. "Why'd you bring the dog, Kathleen?" he says suddenly.

"Good guard dog," she says softly. "Makes enough noise to warn you shit's coming before it hits the fan."

Bobby pushes up, looks around them, back towards the house. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

She nods. "Swenson's neighbor saw a kid get out of the car and go into the house with him. Said it looked like a teenage girl."

 _Christ, it's never-ending_ , Bobby thinks as he hefts the oxygen tank up again. "Inside, now. I'm not taking any chances on this."

Hudak hails the dog and follows Bobby into the house, pausing to lock the door behind her as he sets the tank down on the kitchen table, rubs his brow, and he can't help thinking about what has brought them here, about John Winchester, so desperate that he raised his eldest to think he was the one member of the family who didn't mean shit.

"I'm beginning to think somebody up there just doesn't like this kid," grates out of him before he can stop it. "I mean, what are the odds? Of this happening, of it being _this_ boy, who's so screwed in the head he fell for whatever lies they were peddling, and fooled into this, this _nightmare_ because he's so desperate for some fuckin' kindness—"

"Bobby."

He pulls up, only realizes his voice must be carrying through into the hallway when Hudak walks over to close the door, and her expression when she turns back looks part-fascinated, part-embarrassed by the tirade he's pouring out in front of someone he barely knows.

"How bad is he?" she broaches carefully. "Honestly?"

Bobby holds out his hands and she can see a definite tremor. "That's how bad. I can't stop them. Last time my hands shook like this was twenty-five years ago, Kathleen, and that was comin' down from six months at cruising altitude after my wife and son were killed." He folds his arms, very deliberately. "He's all over the fuckin' place, flashing back, disoriented. Thinks either Sam or me's Lee Bender one minute, his dad the next. Can't catch his breath, Christ the ribs must be killing him when he coughs. Sicked up the two spoons of soup Sam forced down him ten minutes later, I swear he looks skinnier every time I go in there. Fuckin' John Winchester…"

He breathes heavy, holds his hands fisted now at his sides, as it bubbles up out of him. "This kid, he doesn't deserve this. Their dad, he just… You know, I know he loves them, he does. But somehow that falls by the wayside and they're just… cannon fodder, footsoldiers in his personal fuckin' army, dragged on his personal fuckin' crusade. And Sam, he had the guts to get out – and it took guts, believe me. But how John could do it, how he could do it to Dean… I just don't think I'll ever get it."

Hudak pulls out a chair, sits at the table. "Could Dean not have done what Sam did?" she says, puzzled. "If he was unhappy? Maybe gone with Sam?"

Bobby shakes his head. "Sam never asked him, far as I know. Dean'd spill his guts every now and then when he'd been on the Wild Turkey. Said Sam never wanted him with him, said Sam was ashamed of him, didn't think he'd measure up to his college buddies."

Raising an eyebrow, Hudak notes, "That doesn't sound like Sam… he seems pretty devoted to me."

Bobby nods. "Now. But a lot had gone on with Sam and John… locking horns all the damn time, Dean stuck in the middle and having to break up fights every day far as I could tell. Sam wasn't running from Dean, he was running from John… Dean was collateral damage. But John can do no wrong in Dean's eyes, so the kid just ended up blaming himself."

"But Dean's a grown man… couldn't he have left himself?"

"He just couldn't seem to find the exit. Couldn't walk away from his dad even though his dad destroyed him, destroyed his chances and his hope, and turned him into something he wasn't ever meant to be, some kind of killing machine. The fuckin' Terminator. And then John walked away from him."

He reaches for the oxygen, pauses. "It's just fuckin' ironic," he continues, quieter now. "I told you, didn't I, about how Dean always _needed_. So it's just fuckin' ironic that all these pieces slot together… Bender catching sight of him, whack on the head, drugs up the wazoo… and he falls for it, this whole family line they feed him, as sick and twisted as it is, because he's hurt and confused and because it's all he ever really wanted, to be part of a family. And all of these coincidences collide to bring us here to this point, like it's the perfect fuckin' storm or something. And it still isn't over."

He stares at the closed door for a minute. "What the fuck do we have to do for this to be over?" he murmurs as he reins himself back down to something approaching calm. He lifts the oxygen tank. "Let's get this to the boy."

Hudakgets up to follow him. "Bobby… what you said," she starts.

Bobby is already regretting it. "I said a lot just there, Kathleen, things I shouldn't have said."

"I'm sorry, Bobby, but you can't lay all that on me… cannon fodder, and footsoldiers, and personal armies, and crusades, and killing machines… and just leave it there."

He stops with his hand on the doorknob, very pointedly doesn't answer.

"You said Dean wasn't guilty of any crime as I knew it, but he was one of the FBI's most wanted," Hudak presses. "Until he died. Or apparently didn't. You may have said too much, but you can't unsay it. And leaving me to spin in the wind will not wash with me."

Bobby grins wryly, wonders why he ever expected that to wash over Hudak's head. "Why does that not surprise me?" he says. "Okay, have it your way. We'll talk some more about it later."

Hudak narrows her eyes at him. "We will," she says, and then she sighs in a way Bobby knows is meaningful.

"What?" he fishes.

"Swenson told me what to look for. What signs to look for."

Dean cracks his eyes open as Bobby lifts his head to position the mask, even smiles the ghost of a smile. He's burning hot and his body is wracked by shivers.

Sam has coffee on the go, is wide awake now, nerves setting him twitching almost as badly as his semi-comatose brother.

"How's the coughing?" Hudak says.

"Pretty bad still, when he gets a fit of it… he's seized a couple more times." He looks past her, through the open door. "He's still really hot, I think he needs more antibiotics, can we get Swenson in here to dose him up?"

There's no way to do this easy so Hudak just spits it out. "Sam, when I went back into town after Swenson I found him dead, throat cut. Someone saw a girl get out of his car when he arrived back there and I think it might have been Missy Bender…"

He's astounded and she doesn't blame him. "But what about my brother, who's gonna…? How can that even be possible, how can she still be alive? Jesus… Bobby, I'm seriously wondering if there's more to this than we thought… Is this a Carrie deal? Could she be, I don't know, a, a ghoul, a changeling? Or a wraith, maybe?" The words spill out of him thoughtlessly, until he notices sees Hudak staring right at him.

"I m-m-mean…" he stammers."W-what I mean to say is—"

"Sam, just put your foot back in your mouth, boy," Bobby interjects dryly. "The Deputy and I have already had some words about the family business and we'll be talking more about it later. And while I guess this kid could be working some mojo we don't know about, we could just be looking at an unusually lucky stalker in puppy love with your brother."

Sam closes his eyes, scowls. "Ugh, God. Something Bender said… that she was using her _magic fingers_ on him. She was all over Dean… and she cut me loose when Bender was about to… when he went for Dean." He stands up. "She could be out there again, anywhere. We need to lock this place up, we need to—"

"I brought my dog, Sam, she'll let us know if anything is trying to get in here," Hudak says. "We'll walk her around the place, every room, outside too."

He nods, looks a tad less rattled, crosses to Swenson's bags. "We need to give him more drugs… we held off because we expected Swenson would be back any time." He rummages through the bag, pulls out the bottle Swenson drew the antibiotics off. "Bobby?"

The old man tears open a syringe. "More fluids too, this pack's almost out," he says.

Sam looks over at Hudak, back at his brother, clears his throat. "You need to check him over. I know he told you what to look for."

She sighs wearily, because she's been hoping this wouldn't come up again. "I know. But do you think it's really necessary?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well… the way you said he reacted when he woke up with you there in the bed, the way he exploded… you said it was like a flashback. Maybe that's confirmation enough?"

"She's got a point, Sam," Bobby offers. "Maybe we can just assume. Maybe we don't have to go… upsetting him any more than he already is. Could set him off coughin', make him seize again."

Sam's tone is cool, unemotional. "I'm willing to take that risk. I need to know what happened to my brother, Bobby. Everything that happened to him. We need to confront this if we're to have any hope of helping him find his way back from it. I don't want to be wondering about it and second-guessing everything he says or does. And he needs to know I know, he needs to know that he doesn't have to hide anything from me, or feel ashamed."

He's right, Hudak knows it, and she can see from his face that Bobby does too.

"Are you staying for it?" the old man says, bluntly. "Because I'd as soon take the dog around myself."

"I'm staying."

Hands, rolling him, pulling, tugging at fabric, tugging at his defenses.

The hands don't hurt this time, but he doesn't want them there.

"Dean, you have to calm down. Dean, _calm down_ , we need to… we're not gonna hurt you… _Dean_ …"

The fear smothers him and he screams, kicks, bats out, floats a desperate hand up to his chest as his heart skips in horror.

"Dean, look at me. _Look at me_ …"

And suddenly the voice is cold, implacable, uncompromising, and utterly familiar.

"Man up, Dean. That's a fucking order."

 _Yessir_ …

And the lights start to strobe again and the haze sets in, and he feels his jaw lock, his teeth clenching together so hard it sends white-hot shards of pain reverberating through his brain, and he shakes, rattles and rolls his way into _sleep-wake_.


End file.
